AMY GOODMAN: Michael Greco is outgoing president of the American Bar Association, the nation's largest law association, association of lawyers in this country. Can you talk about the issues of torture, the Hamdan decision, and the issues of extraordinary rendition?

MICHAEL GRECO: As I said a moment ago, when all of us in our country learned that our military was torturing people, when we learned that people were being held, detained at Guantanamo without access to family, to lawyers, to a judge, to review the reasons for that incarceration, these are just some examples of the kinds of freedoms issues that the American Bar Association addresses to protect our constitutional rights.

The Supreme Court of the United States, in two decisions, in 2004 and again about three weeks ago, made it clear that the war on terror does not give the President a blank check to deny fundamental freedoms that are protected by the Constitution. We are not a country that has tortured people, and it shamed all of us, and that is why the ABA adopted a policy resolution condemning that and asking Congress, urging Congress to hold hearings to find out who caused that torture, why it happened, and to ensure that it will never happen again. Congress has not held such hearings. We continue to urge Congress to get beneath that torturing system so that we can find out why and prevent it from happening again.

These series of issues that you just mentioned are issues of great concern, not only to the ABA, but to all of us in this country. We want security. We want our nation to be secured. We want the President and the administration to protect us, but not at the expense of giving up our constitutional freedoms, because if we do that voluntarily, then we are doing the work of the terrorists that are trying to destroy our democracy. We would be doing it to ourselves, and that would be the ultimate harm inflicted on ourselves.

AMY GOODMAN: Michael Greco, would you call the presidency of President Bush dangerous?

MICHAEL GRECO: I think that's too sweeping a statement. I think the President and the administration are doing their job as they see fit and in the best way they can. There are legitimate differences of opinion as to how the war on terror is being conducted. We say at the ABA and a lot of scholars around the country say that we can fight the war on terror and also protect our freedoms. It's not an either/or. It should not be an either/or. Anyone who says that you have to choose national security over constitutional freedoms is giving the American people a false choice. I reject that false choice. The American Bar Association rejects that false choice. We can do both, and we must do both for the good, not only of our current citizenry, but for generations to come. We have to protect our freedoms while we are winning the war on terror.

AMY GOODMAN: Michael Greco, I want to thank you for being with us, President of the American Bar Association, speaking to us from Washington D.C.

MICHAEL GRECO: Thank you.

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