United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon (Photo: Flickr/World Economic Forum)

The tea party has added another item to its list of reasons to fear the United Nations: Some in the movement say the U.N. is planning to intervene in the United States’ upcoming elections.

This week, when Attorney General Eric Holder announced his speech on voting rights, the Texas group True the Vote called for a protest of the event because “Holder is for NAACP Plans to involve the United Nations in US Elections.” [Their emphasis.]

True the Vote, a voter integrity initiative launched by the Houston tea party group King Street Patriots, held a national summit this year featuring some of the right’s most incendiary speakers, such as Andrew Breitbart, The Texas Independent reported. According to the Independent, “representatives from more than 25 states attended the two-day national summit in Houston to receive training and information about the conservative organization’s efforts to combat voter fraud.”

The Independent reported back in March that the group was a 501(c)4 nonprofit and had applied for 501(c)3 nonprofit status.

Catherine Engelbrecht, the president of King Street Patriots, said during the group’s summit that she was hoping to mobilize teams of three people to oversee each voting precinct in the country. That would add up to roughly 1 million right-wing tea party volunteers nationwide by the 2012 general election, the Independent reported.

Tea Party Manatee, based in Southwest Florida, sent out an email newsletter this week, echoing the King Street Patriots’ latest fight and warning that the U.N. is “trying to Intervene in 2012 Elections.”

According to group’s email:

• In November 2012 Foreign bureaucrats will appear at your polling station to ensure you adhere to their vision of a ‘fair’ election.
• Local polling officials who dare to enforce state clean election laws will be subject to lawsuits and arrest.
• Conservative political speech will be deemed hateful and be suppressed.
• Just enough voter fraud will be allowed to ensure a second term for Barack Hussein Obama.

This is not a fantasy – next week it will start to become reality when a delegation of leftist Obama supporters will meet with the United Nations High Commissioner on Human Rights in Geneva, Switzerland. And there they will lay the groundwork to ensure the United Nations takes action in time to save Barack Obama.

You see, the Democratic Left is terrified of the new clean election laws being passed across America. These laws have cleared our voter lists of the dead and the ineligible, require voter identification for everyone and insist that our military be allowed to vote.

And clean elections are the single greatest weapon we have to ensure an honest vote in 2012 and a single term for Barack Obama. And the Left can’t allow that to happen.

So they will make their case for action to the UN Human Rights Council – an international government origination so biased that even Hillary Clinton has denounced it.

Council members like Saudi Arabia, Cuba, Mexico and China will review your election laws and judge if you measure up to their idea of democracy. How can we accomplish any of our goals, like repealing health care rationing, securing the borders and balancing our budget if we can’t even control our own elections?

That’s why we need to send a clear message to the UN – stay out of America’s elections and abandon Barack Obama to the judgment of the American people. I need you to tell the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to send that very message to the United Nations – by any means necessary.

It’s difficult to trace the exact origin of this particular hysteria, but one of the earliest mentions of the NAACP’s plan to involve the U.N. came in a report by Fox News.

According to Fox:

The NAACP is calling on the United Nations to intervene as it claims state governments are colluding to “block the vote” for minority communities ahead of the 2012 election — a charge those governments vehemently deny.

The nation’s biggest civil rights organization this week released a report that claimed a raft of new voting laws at the state level would disenfranchise minority voters. The report said 14 states passed 25 measures “designed to restrict or limit the ballot access of voters of color.”

…

Supporters of the laws describe them as common-sense measures meant to ensure the integrity of elections. In Tennessee, which is implementing a new photo ID law, elections coordinator Mark Goins dismissed the criticism and questioned why the NAACP would flag the United Nations over its concerns, calling that effort “a bit extreme.”

“I don’t know what the benefit of going to the U.N. would be,” he said. “I can’t imagine any authority whatsoever that they would have here in Tennessee.”

But the NAACP described the new measures as part of a “concerted” effort to drive down minority turnout and is planning a multi-stage campaign to attract international attention.

To start, the group is planning a “Stand 4 Freedom” rally this Saturday across from the U.N. headquarters. Supporters are being asked to sign an online pledge which, among other demands, calls on the United Nations to “investigate and condemn voter suppression tactics in the United States.”

Copies of the latest report are being sent to the United Nations, as well as attorneys general across the country and the Department of Justice. According to one newspaper report, the NAACP will follow up in March when it sends a delegation to Geneva, Switzerland, to present its case before the U.N. Human Rights Council — a group known more for its sustained criticism of Israel than its attention to voting rights.

An NAACP spokesman says the organization is just doing its duty as one of the 3,500 groups that “has consulting status” with the U.N. The group simply works with the international organization to make sure the United States is “living up to its commitment” to an initiative to eliminate discrimination, the spokesperson says.

He also says that the U.N. does not have the power to actually intervene in state matters, and can only interview people and create reports through the Human Rights Council.

“We are just working to make sure the U.S. remains a beacon of democracy,” the NAACP spokesperson says.

The NAACP will be giving a presentation in Geneva to the Human Rights Council in March 2012 as part of its consulting status.

Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., will accept an award for his conservation efforts at an assembly this Friday in Lake Mary.

Audubon of Florida’s Theodore Roosevelt Award goes to lawmakers whose conservation efforts have made a notable impact on Florida’s ecosystems and wildlife. Roosevelt was one of the founding members of the Florida Audubon Society and established the first National Wildlife Refuge at Pelican Island.

“The very name Theodore Roosevelt stands for resilience, resolve and courage in the face of fire,” said Audubon Executive Director Eric Draper in a press release. “No public figure in Florida embodies those values like Senator Bill Nelson.”

Nelson has been vocal about protecting Florida’s coasts from offshore oil drilling in Cuba, and has worked to restore the Everglades. In a press release, Audubon called him “the most reliable champion of Florida’s environment” for the past three decades, “willing to stand up to oil companies and other powerful interests while bringing leaders from across the country to view the Everglades and elicit widespread support for protecting Florida’s environment.”

Nelson has also been a leading advocate for the RESTORE Act (.pdf), which requires that 80 percent of Clean Water Act fines paid by BP and other parties responsible for last year’s oil spill go directly to restoring the health of the Gulf Coast. Typically, Clean Water Act fines go directly into the U.S. treasury, where they are then used for a variety of projects.

Sixty percent of the funds will go to the Gulf Coast Ecosystem Restoration Council, 35 percent will be equally divided among the five Gulf Coast states and 5 percent will go toward a science and fisheries program. Republican Sen. Marco Rubio also played a role in getting that legislation to the Senate floor.

Bachmann told a packed room at the busy Cuban restaurant that she “wants to win Florida twice.” #

“Florida chooses presidents,” she said. #

Bachmann spoke to a group of journalists and South Florida GOPers who clapped and cheered after Bachmann’s shots at President Obama and calls for cutting federal programs. She told the crowd that, unlike the president, she would not have any “czars” or teleprompters in “her White House.” #

Cuban-Americans in Miami typically respond well to anti-government rhetoric — as well as anti-communist, anti-socialist and anti-Castro rhetoric. Besides her frequent criticism of federal health care reform and financial regulations, Bachmann used the opportunity to try to win the crowd by criticizing Obama’s limited Cuba-related policy history. #

“It was wrong of Obama to weaken sanctions against Cuba,” she said. “I would not do that.” #

GOP legislators in Miami typically use a hardline policy on Cuba as a way to garner votes from an older group of Cuban immigrants in South Florida. Because many receive political asylum from the United States, in the past they have represented a strong voting block in Miami. #

“The Cuban-American vote is extremely important in this election,” Bachmann said. “They get liberty. They get freedom.” #

She said that she visited the Bay of Pigs Museum as her first stop in Miami because it was the perfect example of fighting for freedom. #

“The Cuban people are beautiful, sweet people,” she said. “They want Cuban people to be free.” #

But not so fast, Campo-Flores argues:

If these emerging conservatives win, and capture sizable chunks of the Hispanic vote doing so, how will the major national Latino organizations, which are dominated by Democrats, react? As [Florida International University Professor Dario] Moreno summarizes the dilemma, “Do you denounce them as traitors, or try to embrace a broader Hispanic agenda?”

If that agenda involves policies that Latinos largely believe dehumanize immigrants, it may be a tough sell—which goes to the heart of the Republican predicament. After several election cycles in which the party has alienated the nation’s fastest-growing demographic, it essentially has two choices, says Sanchez: “either change your policy stances, or try to find candidates like” Rubio, Martinez, or Sandoval, who may be able to pick up Hispanic support. For now, the GOP has opted for the latter, a move that has generated no shortage of skepticism. “It’s very difficult to put the onus on a couple of these candidates after all the years of demonizing [blacks and Latinos],” says [University of Florida Professor Daniel] Smith. “These actions speak louder than a few token minorities at the top of the ticket.” The candidates would surely bristle at being characterized that way. Perhaps they can exact their revenge by proving him wrong.

Latinos make up sizable portions of the voting population in each of the three states, according to data released today by Pew Hispanic Center: Latinos account for 38 percent of the electorate in New Mexico, 15 percent in Florida and 14 percent in Nevada.

But Campo-Flores rightly notes each of the three states’ Latino populations has unique demographic qualities that make it atypical — if there can be considered a typical Latino population or Latino voter at all. In Florida, a large segment of Latino voters are from Cuba and Puerto Rico, meaning they never underwent a difficult immigration process to receive legal status in the United States. (Cubans are automatically given citizenship when they get to the States, while Puerto Ricans are American citizens.) New Mexico’s Latino population is largely American-born, meaning struggles of illegal immigrants are less familiar. In Nevada, while many Latinos are recent immigrants, most are not politically active.

If Rubio, Martinez and Sandoval win among Latino voters in their states, then, it does not necessarily mean they would win in others. It’s an obvious point — no two elections are exactly the same, of course — but one that is worth repeating as observers prepare to speculate on what the election means for the future of each party. While the election results may not indicate that Latinos are lifelong Democrats, victories by three Latino Republican candidates will not mean they are turning toward the GOP either.

[Security1] It’s unclear when the Obama administration will actually close the facility. There’s a possibility it could still carry out the closure before the end of the year: The Defense Department has asked Congress for $350 million for all aspects of closing the Guantanamo detention facility and purchasing a new Illinois prison to house the residual population that has yet to be tried or repatriated (as well as about 48 detainees the administration seeks to hold in indefinite detention). It has placed the money in the politically potent request for funding operations in the Afghanistan war. That choice itself reflects the bipartisan resistance in Congress to actually closing the facility, despite both party’s presidential candidates in 2008 running on a pledge to end an international symbol of infamy.

Accordingly, a group of reporters toured a few of Camp Delta’s nine facilities today to get a highly constrained glimpse of residual life in Guantanamo Bay. The military command has reviewed every photograph presented here to prevent inadvertent disclosures of classified information; seven photographs I took were deleted.

A rare glimpse between two outer layers of security surrounding Camp 5 and Camp 6, two facilities modeled on prisons in Indiana and Michigan. Recently-relaxed rules for restricting photography now allow some visual representation of the shoreline. We did not get to see Camp 7, a facility containing high value detainees. “We do acknowledge there’s a Camp 7,” said Lt. Col. Andrew McManus, the deputy commander of the Joint Detention Group, which oversees detention operations. “That’s all we say about it.” When I asked if the 14 detainees at Guantanamo Bay who arrived in September 2006 from undisclosed prisons run by the CIA — including Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and his fellow 9/11 co-conspirators — lived in communal housing or are held in individual cells, McManus replied, “I know nothing about that whatsoever.”

A detainee jogs around the central recreation yard in Camp 4, a communal-housing facility for detainees who comply with guards’ orders. When he saw a group of reporters taking pictures of the area, he yelled out in English, “Put me beside bin Laden!” The consensus of the press corps was he was joking.

Two contrasting images from an area in Camp 4 used for holding educational classes. With the exception of the prayer mat, the recreational materials on this table — the Soduko book, the art supplies and the magazines — are comfort items provided to help “compliant” detainees at Camp 4 while away the time. In the makeshift classroom, detainees watch DVDs — some are said to be partial to Jackie Chan movies and the Alaskan fishing show “Deadliest Catch” — as well as attending art and language and “life skill” courses. But across the floor in the classroom are small metal eyebolts used to shackle detainees to their seats during the classes. “For the safety of the instructor, the detainees are shackled,” McManus explained.

Camp 6, modeled on a Michigan prison, is a $37 million facility consisting of eight blocks of 22 cells. It’s a communal-living facility, meaning detainees live with each other, although there are several cells that aren’t big enough for more than a single occupant. Here, a detainee — a slight man, maybe about 5 foot 5 — ambles over from a common area to speak amiably with a guard, who’s separated from the detainee by a schoolyard-fence style barrier. I was allowed to publish these photographs because I blurred the detainee’s faces.

This is the ceiling of a single-occupancy detainee’s cell in H Block in Camp 6, just above the toilet. I laid down on the concrete platform set up for a detainee’s bed to get a sense of what might be the last thing he sees before going to sleep at night.

Another shot from the recreation yard at Camp 4. The only towers we’re allowed to photograph are those with guards manning them, and only then if the guard’s face isn’t able to be determined. Similarly, the crouching detainee below pulled the collar of his shirt above his nose, obscuring his face enough so that a photograph of the scene could clear a security review.

We weren’t allowed inside this Camp 4 facility. While there’s no indication this behavior persists at Guantanamo, early in the detention facility’s existence, behavioral-science teams were involved in abusive interrogation and detention operations, as a Senate Armed Services Committee report in 2008 meticulously documented. There haven’t been accounts of behaviorally-enhanced interrogations for years. “We have visitors here every day of the week,” McManus said, including the International Committee of the Red Cross.

A view of the American flag through the perimeter fences around Camp 4 and Camp 5. A Toronto Star journalist remarked that it was probably the single most photographed American flag around. Then she snapped some pictures.

Video after the jump:

All this raises the question of how the powers claimed by the Bush admin– oh, sorry, the Obama administration to detain someone indefinitely can withstand a legal challenge. The Supreme Court ruled in 2008 that Guantanamo detainees have a right to habeas corpus, a decision that removed the last argument for keeping the detention facility open as a venue for holding someone without charge. Obama plans to move the remaining detainees to the Thomson Correction Center in Illinois. Does the administration expect the courts to suddenly determine that the Constitution of the United States applies less to Illinois than it does to a naval base in Cuba? The cynical view is that the administration is looking to the courts to take the political heat of determining that the detainees must either be charged in some venue — civilian trials or military commissions — or released.

But the administration still needs Congress to provide the money for it to purchase Thomson. It plans to go to Congress at some point and say, “We need money to close one facility used for indefinite detention and purchase … well, another facility we plan to use for, among other things, indefinite detention. And we’re going to start that facility over from scratch!” Why would Congress approve that money?

But is that true?

Actually, it’s not clear, Scott Silliman, a professor at Duke University Law School and director of the Center for Law, Ethics, and National Security, tells Warren Richey of the Christian Science Monitor. After all, “we’ve never done this before,” says Silliman.

It’s not even clear what “this” is.

Is the administration going to move all of the men to military custody, or will some be moved to federal civilian custody for trial in a civilian court? The government hasn’t yet said. And will some people be held in military custody indefinitely without trial? The administration hasn’t said that yet, either. So to some extent, the speculation is premature.

What Richey does make clear in his story, however, is that there are some rights that the government will be hard-pressed to argue don’t apply to prisoners on U.S. soil, even if they may not have applied to them at Guantanamo Bay. Those include the Fifth-Amendment right to due process of law, for example, which the government argues doesn’t apply in Cuba. As I’ve explained before, however, what rights the detainees have at the prison in Cuba has never really been decided.

Some defense lawyers even worry, as Richey reports, that their clients will get worse treatment in a beyond-Supermax facility in Illinois than they do at Guantanamo, where the international focus on previous mistreatment has forced improvements.

The fears of Mitch McConnell and his fellow Republicans notwithstanding, exactly what rights any military detainee in Illinois is going to get will depend a whole lot on the status the government gives them when they’re transferred. And for now, the Obama administration hasn’t yet told us what that will be.

View the details of all Guantanamo detainees’ habeas corpus cases at TWI’s Gitmo Habeas Scoreboard.

Today, The Washington Independent unveils a new feature that will track the outcomes of habeas corpus cases filed by Guantanamo Bay detainees who have challenged their indefinite detentions in the federal court system.

The Gitmo Habeas Scoreboard is broken up into two sections: cases won by detainees — further divided between detainees who have been released and those still in custody — and cases won by the U.S. government. Using information compiled by Pro Publica and David Remes, legal director of Appeal for Justice, the accompanying charts feature background information on all 41 detainees whose cases have been decided to date, including the allegations against each detainee, the court’s reasoning in each decision, and the status of any appeals. As more cases are resolved, we’ll keep updating the chart.

Of the 41 cases heard so far, detainees have won 32 of them. That means that in 32 out of 41 cases, the government was unable to present enough evidence, including classified evidence, to convince a federal court judge that it’s more likely than not that the detainee was a member or substantial supporter of al-Qaeda or the Taliban. (Habeas cases are civil proceedings, where there is no need to establish guilt “beyond a reasonable doubt,” as in criminal trials.)

Of the 32 cases the government has lost, it has appealed only two. Eight detainees who have lost their cases have appealed so far.

Meanwhile, many of the prisoners who have won their petitions for habeas corpus are still imprisoned at Gitmo. Although the court in each case ordered the government to arrange for the detainee’s expeditious release, in some cases the government can’t or won’t send the prisoner back to where he came from. In some cases, that’s either because the detainee legitimately fears persecution at home, as in the case of the Uighurs. In others, it’s because, as with the prisoners from Yemen, the U.S. government doesn’t trust the detainee’s home government to keep him from joining up with local terror groups upon his return.

As a result, of the 32 detainees who have won an order of release in a U.S. federal court, 11 remain in prison.

For a full breakdown of all the cases, see the Gitmo Habeas Scoreboard here.

Returning Guantanamo Bay to full Cuban sovereignty and control is a win for the United States: Aside from the boon to America’s credibility with the Cuban people and throughout Latin America, these first steps would probe the Cuban government’s apparent disposition to use the base as a point of contact with the United States — and gauge the regime’s willingness to move the ball forward even more.

There’s not a real military need for the base, either. It used to be a coaling station when the United States took it during the Spanish-American war. Indeed, when I visited Guantanamo Bay in 2005 and asked what the other purposes of the base were, my spirited public affairs guide replied, “Whores.” But even the whoring dried up — I’m not naive enough to believe it stopped — after the Cuban Revolution, and a 50 year wait to be tricking is a really poor national security argument. One mitigating argument I can think of against giving the base back: it temporarily housed thousands of Haitian refugees in the 1990s, but no one was particularly happy about that arrangement. So on balance, the arguments against giving Guantanamo Bay back to the Cubans are

a) We might need it as a legal netherworld for the indefinite detention of war-on-terror detainees

b) We can’t look weak in front of the Soviet-backed Fidel Castro

c) It’s a really beautiful place, especially for getting rip-roaring drunk on rum-based cocktails while the Carribean spray comes in off the cliffs at sunset.

Really only argument c) applies anymore, and there are lots of nice places to get loaded.