Recently in The Rule of Law Category
Via Sully, NION reports on Gene Burn's reversal of his stance on our government's culpability in torture.
[KGO talk radio host Gene] Burns has consistently opposed impeachment proceedings against George [Bush] and [Dick] Cheney as frivolous and unwarranted: these men have not, to his mind, committed impeachable offenses. Challenged by callers contending that these men approved the torture of fellow human beings, Burns has maintained that the United States has not tortured; even waterboarding, to him, does not constitute torture.
Wednesday night, all this changed. After viewing on his local PBS affiliate the documentary Torturing Democracy, Burns told his listeners, he realized he had been wrong. The United States has tortured. It has also engaged in extraordinary renditions, for the purpose of torture. While Burns still believes impeachment to be a non-starter, he has concluded that, in the treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and in other sites overseas, Dick Cheney is guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity, and should be brought to trial before an international tribunal at The Hague.
I've always said that I've thought that even at Guantanamo Bay the United States was careful to stay on this side of torture. In fact, you may recall that on a couple of occasions we got into a spirited debate on this program about waterboarding, and whether waterboarding was torture. And I took the position that it was not torture, that it was simulated drowning, and that if that produced information which preserved our national security, I thought it was permissible.
And then I saw Torturing Democracy.
And I'm afraid, now that I have seen what I have seen, that I was wrong about that. It looks to me, based on this documentary, as if in fact we have engaged in behavior and practices at Guantanamo Bay, and in these illegal renditions, that are violations of the international human rights code.
And I believe that Dick Cheney is responsible. I believe that he was the agent of the United States government charged with developing the methodology used at Guantanamo Bay, supervising it for the administration, and indulging in practices which are in fact violations of human rights. [...]
I really found this documentary, Torturing Democracy, very, very disturbing. And I guess the reason that heretofore I have not been such an easy mark on the matter of this kind of charge is that I don't think I ever saw an organized, systematized review of what we did, and how we did it, as well presented as it was in this documentary.
And it grieves me to say, as an American citizen, that I believe the leadership of our country is responsible for crimes against humanity. But, you know, we can't be trumpeting about the behavior of others, like Milosevic, and others, if we do not expect ourselves to be held to a similar high standard.
And no matter our desire to preserve and protect our national security, which is uppermost in the minds of all of us, and something which our leaders are sworn to do by oath, if to do that we have to engage in torture, we should not do it.
The complete documentary is available online here along with a schedule of local stations and additional supporting material and documentation.
Valtin, one of the resident psychologists in the dkos community who keeps us up to date on what's happening on that front, reports that the American Psychological Association has sent a letter to Bush:
APA LETTER TO BUSH: NEW POLICY LIMITS PSYCHOLOGIST INVOLVEMENT IN INTERROGATIONS
Prohibits psychologist participation in interrogations at unlawful detention sites
WASHINGTON--The American Psychological Association sent a letter today to President Bush, informing him of a significant change in the association's policy that limits the roles of psychologists in certain unlawful detention settings where the human rights of detainees are violated, such as has occurred at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and at so-called CIA black sites around the world.
"The effect of this new policy is to prohibit psychologists from any involvement in interrogations or any other operational procedures at detention sites that are in violation of the U.S. Constitution or international law (e.g., the Geneva Conventions and the U.N. Convention Against Torture)," says the letter, from APA President Alan E. Kazdin, PhD. "In such unlawful detention settings, persons are deprived of basic human rights and legal protections, including the right to independent judicial review of their detention."
The roles of psychologists at such sites would now be limited to working directly for the people being detained or for an independent third party working to protect human rights, or to providing treatment to military personnel. The new policy was voted on by APA members and is in the process of being implemented.
Valtin has more details and discusses the implications in the diary. Go read. To see more of Valtin's previous reports on the APA and the torture issue, check here.
Atrios is so good at locating the nugget of importance in all the words. And he's done so this time. Here's the worrisome bit:
Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.
Here's a draft of the complete proposal courtesy of CalculatedRisk.
It pretty much has the sound of "The secretary can do anything he damn well pleases regardless of what the law says and no one will be able to review it or reverse it. So there."
This is one of those topics where any person not an economist or a Wall Street trader feels at a loss to discuss intelligently though all have opinions. Something must be done. But the inside word on Secretary Paulson's proposal is that it puts all the power in the hands of the Treasury Secretary with no oversight or regulation. New Deal Democrat rounded up the economists that write columns or blog in this post. Take the time to click through and read their original pieces and the message comes through pretty clearly. What's been proposed by the Bush administration is not good for our country.
It reminds one of Brownie aka Michael Brown of FEMA / Katrina fame or Monica Goodling or Alberto Gonzales. We cannot afford to place so much power in the hands of one individual with the hope that someone knowledgeable and competent is nominated for the position.
A story that someone out canvassing in northern Virginia this weekend told makes the point most clearly:
"Are you the Obama folks who just left the literature at my door?" asked the women walking purposefully down the sidewalk. [...]
"I need to tell you how I feel," said the woman as she came up to us. "I'm a Republican... well I was a Republican. I've always voted Republican in the past... but not anymore. We need to clean house. I'm voting for Obama... you need to know that. This country needs to know that!!! I've had enough!!!!!!"
"So, you're voting for a total Democratic slate?" I asked, hesitantly.
"Yes," she replied. "I work in a small government agency, and after 7 years, I've come to the conclusion after trying to deal with these Republican appointees that there are just very few of them that are competent or care a thing about what they are doing. In fact, if they screw things up, it just confirms their beliefs, since they don't believe in government. They simply need to be sent packing."
"OK, would you say you have historically voted Republican, but are going to now vote for all Democrats," said my wife as she filled out the canvass sheet. "How would you describe yourself then, a Democrat, Republican, or Independent?"
The woman thought for a few seconds, and then finally replied, "I can't describe myself as a Democrat yet... but there's no way I'm a Republican anymore. They are bankrupt. I guess I have to say that I am now an Independent."
We cannot afford to turn over so much authority to the executive branch without any oversight or supervision.
Funny how much St. Paul this week looks like Beijing in the last month or so. Police intimidating peaceful people because they're afraid they may present the wrong image. It's yet another RNC convention whose organizers and supporters so fear the presence of any who might present messages contrary to their own that they are willing to violate, or have violated on their behalf, the First Amendment rights and civil liberties of American citizens.
It's just like Philly in 2000 or NYC in 2004. The Philly 2000 story by dengre provides a highly revealing look into how these actions come about and I strongly encourage you to start with it. The comprehensive NY Times report on just how extensively the police infiltrated and spied prior to the convention, issued in March 2007, gives some clue as to what is happening now. The Wikipedia summary of the police actions at the 2004 RNC convention gives an idea of the scope of the activities they viewed as suspicious.
Via LithiumCola, It seems that Bush has decided to that agency officials have enough knowledge to replace scientists in evaluating impact of actions on species. Per the AP:
Under current law, federal agencies must consult with experts at the Fish and Wildlife Service or the National Marine Fisheries Service to determine whether a project is likely to jeopardize any endangered species or to damage habitat, even if no harm seems likely. This initial review usually results in accommodations that better protect the 1,353 animals and plants in the U.S. listed as threatened or endangered and determines whether a more formal analysis is warranted.
The Interior Department said such consultations are no longer necessary because federal agencies have developed expertise to review their own construction and development projects, according to the 30-page draft obtained by the AP.
"We believe federal action agencies will err on the side of caution in making these determinations," the proposal said.
Right. And I own a bridge in Brooklyn.
There's more good detail in LithiumCola's post as well as in another post by Patriot News Daily Clearinghouse which has more analysis:
Bush's proposed rules would allow federal agencies to determine for themselves "whether highways, dams, mines and other construction projects might harm endangered animals and plants." This means any project a federal agency would fund, build or authorize (e.g., federal agency approval or permits needed) would no longer have independent, scientific review.
Under existing law, mandatory and independent reviews have been conducted by government scientists for the past 35 years. Under current law, federal agencies must consult with the Fish & Wildlife Service or the National Marine Fisheries Service which must determine whether a proposed project is "likely" to jeopardize any endangered species even if no harm appears likely. This initial review enables experts to require accommodations or mitigation measures that provide protection to the threatened or endangered species and determines whether more extensive analysis is needed. A federal government handbook from 1998 concluded that consultations are "some of the most valuable and powerful tools to conserve listed species."
To get some idea of impact, government wildlife experts currently conduct "tens of thousands of such reviews each year:"
Between 1998 and 2002, the Fish and Wildlife Service conducted 300,000 consultations. The National Marine Fisheries Service, which evaluates projects affecting marine species, conducts about 1,300 reviews each year.
[...]
Bush knows that the new ESA proposed rule will be litigated and will likely be overturned by the courts. In 2003, Bush issued similar rules to allow agencies to approve new pesticides and projects to reduce wildfire risks without the pesky inconvenience of needing to obtain consultation from government scientists on whether threatened or endangered species or habitats may be affected by the project. The pesticide rule was rejected by the court and the wildfire prevention rule is currently being litigated.
In the pesticide case, the federal district judge concluded that "to ignore the wildlife agencies is to ignore the law." The judge was also concerned that the pesticide rule was drafted with a "total lack" of "scientific justification" and that there were "disturbing indications" that the Bush administration "deliberately muted dissent from government scientists." This new Bush rule to kill ESA similarly was drafted by attorneys without any input from government scientists, who were first briefed on the new rule last week.
So the Bush administration attempts another backdoor strike at our natural resources on behalf of their business cronies who complain that evaluating impact slows down their projects. Per the Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse post, what's most important to note is how quickly the administrative rule change could be put into place.
The new rules will be formally proposed in the near future. If Bush abides by the usual regulatory rule-making process, then the federal government must publish the proposed rule in the Federal Register to enable the public to read and review the proposed rule. The public then has 30 days to submit comments on the proposed rule, and the government must consider and provide responses to the public comments.
The proposed rule could be accepted by the Interior Department as a final rule in only 60 days. This means a final rule could be issued before the November election.
Keep your eyes open for action alerts on responding to this assault on endangered species.
And if you're wondering why it's important, here's another reminder that I saw just yesterday. Basically, the brown snake "all but destroyed bird life on the northern Pacific island of Guam" after its introduction in the 1940s. But what's of interest now is the recognition that the impact of the snake population has changed the way forests grow and may lead to some trees becoming extinct or nearly so which will impact other species.
Nightprowlkitty alerted us to this post by Duke at The Sanctuary:
Today's New York Times features an article based upon an exclusive interview with Erik Camayd-Freixas, Ph.D. of Florida International University. Dr Camayd-Freixas was one of 26 federally certified interpreters called into service during the Postville Iowa meat packing raid this past May. As a court appointed interpreter, Dr Camayd-Freixas witnessed first hand the abuses and systematic disregard for civil and human-rights that marked that raid.
In 23 years as a certified Spanish interpreter for federal courts, Erik Camayd-Freixas has spoken up in criminal trials many times, but the words he uttered were rarely his own.Then he was summoned here by court officials to translate in the hearings for nearly 400 illegal immigrant workers arrested in a raid on May 12 at a meatpacking plant. Since then, Mr. Camayd-Freixas, a professor of Spanish at Florida International University, has taken the unusual step of breaking the code of confidentiality among legal interpreters about their work.
In a 14-page essay he circulated among two dozen other interpreters who worked here, Professor Camayd-Freixas wrote that the immigrant defendants whose words he translated, most of them villagers from Guatemala, did not fully understand the criminal charges they were facing or the rights most of them had waived.
In the essay and an interview, Professor Camayd-Freixas said he was taken aback by the rapid pace of the proceedings and the pressure prosecutors brought to bear on the defendants and their lawyers by pressing criminal charges instead of deporting the workers immediately for immigration violations.
He said defense lawyers had little time or privacy to meet with their court-assigned clients in the first hectic days after the raid. Most of the Guatemalans could not read or write, he said. Most did not understand that they were in criminal court.
"The questions they asked showed they did not understand what was going on," Professor Camayd-Freixas said in the interview. "The great majority were under the impression they were there because of being illegal in the country, not because of Social Security fraud."
NYT
(Article also contains a video interview with Dr Camayd-Freixas ..it's a must view)Last month I received a copy of the essay Dr Camayd-Freixas wrote detailing the raid.
It is published here in its entirety to document what went on behind closed doors at the National Cattle Congress in Waterloo Iowa where 390 migrants were subjected to kangaroo court proceedings that resulted in guilty pleas and mandatory jail sentences.
Dr Camayd-Freixas will be testifying before Congress later this month at the Immigration Sub-Committee of the House of Representatives in regards to the raid.
He has asked that anyone moved by his account help the relief effort in any way possible;
"Finally, my new friends from Postville involved in the relief effort inform me that they are still dealing with a very tough humanitarian crisis. So, please, if you have any opportunity for fundraising, this is the address where donations can be sent:
St. Bridget's Hispanic Ministry Fund
c/o Sister Mary McCauley
PO Box 369
Postville, Iowa 52162"What follows is the complete story of what happened after the Postville raid:
Go read Dr Camayd-Freixas's complete essay.
Ben Carter is a former KBR employee hired for his expertise in water treatment systems. He was interviewed via email by Progressive Future's Kate Drazner. Here's his story and here's a clip from his appearance in BraveNewFilm's Iraq For Sale movie.
The blog post gives the background on how he got involved, where he was stationed and what happened when he tried to correct and report the contaminated water problem. If you haven't seen Iraq for Sale or heard about this problem before, do take the time to check it out.
Jon Eisenberg, one of the Al Haramain foundation's legal team, has an update on the status of the case in Salon. It's hard to believe that this is what we pay taxes for our government to do.
On July 3, Chief Judge Vaughn Walker of the U.S. District Court in California made a ruling particularly worthy of the nation's attention. In Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation Inc. v. Bush, a key case in the epic battle over warrantless spying inside the United States, Judge Walker ruled, effectively, that President George W. Bush is a felon.
Judge Walker held that the president lacks the authority to disregard the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA -- which means Bush's warrantless electronic surveillance program was illegal. Whether Bush will ultimately be held accountable for violating federal law with the program remains unclear. Bush administration lawyers have fought vigorously -- at times using brazen, logic-defying tactics -- to prevent that from happening. The court battle will continue to play out as Congress continues to battle over recasting FISA and possibly granting immunity to telecom companies involved in the illegal surveillance.
The story of how Al-Haramain's lawyers negotiated the journey thus far to Judge Walker's ruling -- a team of seven lawyers that includes me -- sheds light on how much is at stake for the Bush administration and the country. It is a surreal saga, involving a top-secret document accidentally released by the government, a showdown between Bush lawyers and a federal judge, the violent destruction of a laptop computer by government agents, and possibly even the top-secret shredding of a banana peel.
Call me Alice -- because this is a tale directly from Government Secrecy Wonderland, the bizarre and unnerving adventures of suing President Bush for apparently violating a federal law. I'll swear under penalty of perjury that what follows is true and correct. Otherwise, you might not even believe it.
Do take the time to read this one.
Robert Parry of Consortiumnews highlights a story that should concern us all. It seems that the final report of the Iran-Contra investigation was missing some significant parts. And the failure to expose what happened has allowed the parties involved to continue to influence our country and our politics with no penalty for their ill conduct.
As historians ponder George W. Bush's disastrous presidency, they may wonder how Republicans perfected a propaganda system that could fool tens of millions of Americans, intimidate Democrats, and transform the vaunted Washington press corps from watchdogs to lapdogs.
To understand this extraordinary development, historians might want to look back at the 1980s and examine the Iran-Contra scandal's "lost chapter," a narrative describing how Ronald Reagan's administration brought CIA tactics to bear domestically to reshape the way Americans perceived the world.
For all those who like to wallow in the "America is superior, love it or leave it" mode of thinking, the New York Times has some news which may jar your viewpoint. It seems that our Gitmo techniques are based on those that the Chinese Communists used on US prisoners during the Korean War.
The military trainers who came to Guantánamo Bay in December 2002 based an entire interrogation class on a chart showing the effects of "coercive management techniques" for possible use on prisoners, including "sleep deprivation," "prolonged constraint," and "exposure."
What the trainers did not say, and may not have known, was that their chart had been copied verbatim from a 1957 Air Force study of Chinese Communist techniques used during the Korean War to obtain confessions, many of them false, from American prisoners.
The recycled chart is the latest and most vivid evidence of the way Communist interrogation methods that the United States long described as torture became the basis for interrogations both by the military at the base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and by the Central Intelligence Agency. [...]
The only change made in the chart presented at Guantánamo was to drop its original title: "Communist Coercive Methods for Eliciting Individual Compliance."
And this part should highlight just how ridiculous the claims of Cheney and others supporting the use of torture really are.
The 1957 article (pdf) from which the chart was copied was entitled "Communist Attempts to Elicit False Confessions From Air Force Prisoners of War" and written by Alfred D. Biderman, a sociologist then working for the Air Force, who died in 2003. Mr. Biderman had interviewed American prisoners returning from North Korea, some of whom had been filmed by their Chinese interrogators confessing to germ warfare and other atrocities.
Amazing what you'll confess to when experiencing manipulation and pain that drives you out of your mind. That another country would base military and foreign policy on the words that result from such methods is mind-boggling. That the United States would do it is heart-breaking. We know better than that or we should.
Keith came in for some harsh words on Daily Kos about his comments on Obama's handling of the FISA bill. He makes a couple good points in his response. He opens with an insightful anecdote about John Dean to underscore Dean's pre-eminence as an interpreter of legal matters. Then he moves onto the core of his reasoning for support of Obama's approach to the FISA bill.
With that preamble out of the way, here goes. John said his reading of the revised FISA statute suggested it was so poorly constructed (or maybe so sublimely constructed) that it clearly did not preclude future criminal prosecution of the telecoms - it only stopped civil suits.
I have repeated his observation each night since. Maybe I didn't sell my conviction of its conclusiveness. I think John Dean is worth 25 Glenn Greenwalds (maybe 26 Keith Olbermanns).
Thus, as I phrased it on the air tonight, obviously Obama kicked the left in the teeth by supporting the bill. But anybody who got as hot about this as I did would prefer to see a President Obama prosecuting the telecoms criminally, instead of seeing a Senator Obama engender more "soft on terror" crap by casting a token vote in favor of civil litigation that isn't going to pass since so many other Democrats caved anyway.
I think his last sentence is his strongest point. I've seen this in reaction to issues that Senator Kerry is deeply involved in. People forget that passing laws isn't a 'one-time and you're done' kind of effort. It is always a repetitive process of moving the ball a little further down the field until you finally make the touchdown. I've seen a list of famous legislation and how many times each bill was submitted to Congress before it was finally passed into law. I wish I'd bookmarked it because it makes this point beautifully.
Thomas Nephew at newsrackblog attended a Human Rights First session the other day which he described as follows:
Human Rights First has brought together about twenty pros with significant interrogation experience this week to lobby Congress and the presidential campaigns, and to speak to the public about what works and what doesn't when it comes to gaining credible intelligence -- as opposed to unreliable information -- from interrogations.
Among them are Colonel Stuart A. Herrington, U.S. Army (Retired), with service in Vietnam, Panama , and Operation Desert Storm; Joe Navarro, who served for more than 25 years with the FBI as an interrogator, an agent and a supervisor working in the area of counter-terrorism and counter-intelligence; and Ken Robinson, who served a twenty-year career in a variety of tactical, operational, and strategic assignments including Ranger, Special Forces, and clandestine special operations units, the National Security Agency, Defense Intelligence Agency, and the Central Intelligence Agency.
In other words, seasoned professionals who know what they're talking about, not a hippie among them. These three are speaking today at an "Effectively Interrogating Terrorism Suspects" panel hosted by HRF and the CSIS (Center for Strategic and International Studies) Human Rights and Security Initiative.
While I didn't speak with any of them, I did wind up talking for a while to another interrogator -- now retired from government service -- with a resume fitting in with those described above, including interrogations of the so-called "deck of cards" Baathist Iraqi officials and the like in the aftermath of the 2003 invasion. Since the reception was "off the record", I won't say who he was, but can report the gist of what we discussed.*
Thomas then goes on to talk about his discussion with this interrogator known by the pseudonym of Ray Bennett. The post is interesting as is the discussion in the comments on the post.
But what is of more interest is that Thomas followed up with Ray and did a formal interview with some very interesting Q&As.
Here's his statement on the compromise, which offers retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies who helped the government listen in on American citizens -- which Obama says he'll fight to remove from the legislation -- and expands legal wiretapping powers. Obama praises it for restoring a legal framework and judicial oversight to the process.
Given the grave threats that we face, our national security agencies must have the capability to gather intelligence and track down terrorists before they strike, while respecting the rule of law and the privacy and civil liberties of the American people. There is also little doubt that the Bush Administration, with the cooperation of major telecommunications companies, has abused that authority and undermined the Constitution by intercepting the communications of innocent Americans without their knowledge or the required court orders.That is why last year I opposed the so-called Protect America Act, which expanded the surveillance powers of the government without sufficient independent oversight to protect the privacy and civil liberties of innocent Americans. I have also opposed the granting of retroactive immunity to those who were allegedly complicit in acts of illegal spying in the past.
After months of negotiation, the House today passed a compromise that, while far from perfect, is a marked improvement over last year's Protect America Act.
Under this compromise legislation, an important tool in the fight against terrorism will continue, but the President's illegal program of warrantless surveillance will be over. It restores FISA and existing criminal wiretap statutes as the exclusive means to conduct surveillance - making it clear that the President cannot circumvent the law and disregard the civil liberties of the American people. It also firmly re-establishes basic judicial oversight over all domestic surveillance in the future. It does, however, grant retroactive immunity, and I will work in the Senate to remove this provision so that we can seek full accountability for past offenses. But this compromise guarantees a thorough review by the Inspectors General of our national security agencies to determine what took place in the past, and ensures that there will be accountability going forward. By demanding oversight and accountability, a grassroots movement of Americans has helped yield a bill that is far better than the Protect America Act.
It is not all that I would want. But given the legitimate threats we face, providing effective intelligence collection tools with appropriate safeguards is too important to delay. So I support the compromise, but do so with a firm pledge that as President, I will carefully monitor the program, review the report by the Inspectors General, and work with the Congress to take any additional steps I deem necessary to protect the lives - and the liberty - of the American people.
What is obvious is that our nominee took his time examining the bill and working out what the best approach was to working with what was in it. He refused to be rushed by the media news cycles just so it could be reported that he'd said something.
All of the emotion being displayed in some corners of the liberal blogosphere over Obama's statement on the FISA bill just passed by the house reminded me of this piece by Cass Sunstein.
Not so long ago, the phone rang in my office. It was Barack Obama. For more than a decade, Obama was my colleague at the University of Chicago Law School.
He is also a friend. But since his election to the Senate, he does not exactly call every day. On this occasion, he had an important topic to discuss: the controversy over President George W. Bush's warrantless surveillance of international telephone calls between Americans and suspected terrorists. I had written a short essay suggesting that the surveillance might be lawful. Before taking a public position, Obama wanted to talk the problem through. In the space of about 20 minutes, he and I investigated the legal details. He asked me to explore all sorts of issues: the President's power as commander-in-chief, the Constitution's protection against unreasonable searches and seizures, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the Authorization for Use of Military Force and more.
Obama wanted to consider the best possible defense of what Bush had done. To every argument I made, he listened carefully and offered a specific counter-argument. After the issue had been exhausted, Obama said that he thought the program was illegal, but now had a better understanding of both sides. He thanked me for my time.
This was a pretty amazing conversation, not only because of Obama's mastery of the legal details, but also because many prominent Democratic leaders had already blasted the Bush initiative as blatantly illegal. He did not want to take a public position until he had listened to, and explored, what might be said on the other side. This is the Barack Obama I have known for nearly 15 years--a careful and even-handed analyst of law and policy, unusually attentive to multiple points of view.
Sounds like someone I'd like to see in the White House. Even if I don't agree with him on every step.
Andrew Sullivan has two posts, Disgrace and Disgrace Ctd., that I wanted to highlight for the manner in which he addresses neocon arguments concerning torture and the treatment of detainees. I was first drawn to Sully's blog because of his stand on torture and his championing of Captain Ian Fishback. He has lost none of his passion in writing about this topic.
From Disgrace:
Pete talks about a moral disgrace. You know what is a moral disgrace? Conflating innocent people with those who "want to slit the throats and watch innocent Americans bleed and die." Here's also what is a disgrace: that an American administration knowingly seized individuals who were innocent of any crime, tortured and abused hundreds of them, and lied about it. That Dick Cheney and George W. Bush decided in advance to bypass the Congress in setting clear, legal, constitutional rules for the handling of detainees in the war on terror and so ended up in the Gitmo mess. That, in a time of war and great peril, Bush and Cheney decided to go on an executive branch power-grab because they knew full well that what they intended to do - torture their way to "intelligence" - was illegal. That the Bush policy has neither brought anyone to justice nor provided a decent alternative to habeas rights and poisoned the reputation of American justice for a generation around the world. That the United States coopted former Soviet prison camps in Eastern Europe in order to perpetrate Gestapo methods of interrogation. That's a disgrace.
In Disgrace Ctd., he goes on:
Pete concedes that the administration originally seized far, far more detainees than it could prove guilty (or ever tried to prove guilty) and has released thousands falsely imprisoned. Of the thousands seized, Pete concedes many were abused and tortured, with over a hundred deaths occurring during interrogation, two score of whom the administration has itself conceded were murder-by-interrogation. All this occurred after the president decided his actions as commander-in-chief could not be constrained by the law, after he had waived the baseline Geneva Convention protections for prisoners in wartime - in violation of the policy of every previous president of the United States from Washington on - and after critical memos were signed allowing American interrogators to do anything to prisoners short of death or loss of a major organ. [...]
And all this was done not in the chaos of a battlefield or even by rogue units or POW camps. It was not done in a war with anything like as many soldiers and battles as World War II. It was done in a closely managed war by a professional military and intelligence service in every theater of combat as a concerted policy to get more intelligence about Jihadist terror and the Iraq insurgency. It was authorized directly in the chain of command by the president, who knowingly broke the law and hired lawyers to tell him he hadn't. No clever argumentation that "only" 270 prisoners remain at Gitmo can gainsay that. And it is not, by the way, evidence against the fact that this administration seized countless innocents and tortured them to say that they eventually released most of them. It is no consolation to the torture victims at Abu Ghraib that they were eventually set free and their innocence confirmed. Those are the standards of benign dictatorships, not democracies.
Now, you could argue that the administration, after initial understandable over-reach, has tried to set things right. But you would be wrong. [...]
Major Gen Antonio Taguba, trusted enough by this administration to run an earlier report on the abuse scandal, puts it plainly enough:
"After years of disclosures by government investigations, media accounts, and reports from human rights organizations, there is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes. The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account."
The Bush - Cheney administration has much to answer for. The question remains in what court or venue will they be held accountable?
-- Abraham Lincoln
There are so many who've been following the FISA and telecom immunity battle in detail that it seems pointless to attempt to write something new about it. Glenn Greenwald, a constitutional law and civil rights litigator, has covered it in detail and provides this update on yesterday's activities.
CQ reports (sub. req.) that "a final deal has been reached" on FISA and telecom amnesty and "the House is likely to take up the legislation Friday." I've now just read a copy of the final "compromise" bill. It's even worse than expected. When you read it, it's actually hard to believe that the Congress is about to make this into our law. Then again, this is the same Congress that abolished habeas corpus with the Military Commissions Act, and legalized George Bush's warrantless eavesdropping program with the "Protect America Act," so it shouldn't be hard to believe at all. Seeing the words in print, though, adds a new dimension to appreciating just how corrupt and repugnant this is:
The provision granting amnesty to lawbreaking telecoms, Title VIII, has the exact Orwellian title it should have: "Protection of Persons Assisting the Government." Section 802(a) provides:
[A] civil action may not lie or be maintained in a Federal or State court against any person for providing assistance to an element of the intelligence community, and shall be properly dismissed, if the Attorney General certifies to the district court of the United States in which such action is pending that . . . (4) the assistance alleged to have been provided . . . was --
(A) in connection with intelligence activity involving communications that was (i) authorized by the President during the period beginning on September 11, 2001, and ending on January 17, 2007 and (ii) designed to prevent or detect a terrorist attack, or activities in preparation of a terrorist attack, against the United States" and
(B) the subject of a written request or directive . . . indicating that the activity was (i) authorized by the President; and (ii) determined to be lawful.
So all the Attorney General has to do is recite those magic words -- the President requested this eavesdropping and did it in order to save us from the Terrorists -- and the minute he utters those words, the courts are required to dismiss the lawsuits against the telecoms, no matter how illegal their behavior was.
That's the "compromise" Steny Hoyer negotiated and which he is now -- according to very credible reports -- pressuring every member of the Democratic caucus to support. It's full-scale, unconditional amnesty with no inquiry into whether anyone broke the law. In the U.S. now, thanks to the Democratic Congress, we'll have a new law based on the premise that the President has the power to order private actors to break the law, and when he issues such an order, the private actors will be protected from liability of any kind on the ground that the Leader told them to do it -- the very theory that the Nuremberg Trial rejected.
In his last update of the day yesterday Glenn noted just how bad this bill is.
Now that Democrats have agreed to this bill, the GOP isn't even bothering with the pretense anymore that this is a "compromise." Instead, they're rubbing the Democrats' noses in the fact that this was a full-scale capitulation. From Eric Lichtblau's New York Times article:
With some AT&T and other telecommunications companies now facing some 40 lawsuits over their reported participation in the wiretapping program, Republican leaders described this narrow court review on the immunity question as a mere "formality."
"The lawsuits will be dismissed," Representative Roy Blunt of Missouri, the No. 2 Republican in the House, predicted with confidence.
The proposal -- particularly the immunity provision -- represents a major victory for the White House after months of dispute. "I think the White House got a better deal than even they had hoped to get," said Senator Christopher Bond, the Missouri Republican who led the negotiations.
The White House immediately endorsed the proposal, which is likely to be voted on in the House on Friday and in the Senate next week.
"The White House got a better deal than even they had hoped to get." The administration should know better by now than to underestimate the Democratic leadership's complete cravenness and eagerness to please the White House.
What more can be said? The Democrats that stood up for the rule of law appear to have caved in yet again. We are destroying our country from within -- doing Osama bin Laden's work for him -- tearing down our liberties, eliminating the rights of our citizens and the rule of law.
Steny Hoyer, your role and your accomplices will be remembered. Do not doubt that ordinary citizens will reject this soundly. I'd start working on your resume if I were you.
Other sources of FISA analysis and action: Daily Kos, hilzoy and publius at Obsidian Wings, jane @ firedoglake, emptywheel @ firedoglake, EFF
Dailykos diarist dengre is one of those excellent resource people in the blogosphere with particular expertise in the scandal of the Northern Marianas Islands and in the far-reaching web of Jack Abramoff's criminal activities within the highest reaches of the Republican administration, party and congressional representatives of the last 7 years. He's been tracking it since 1999.
The other day he updated us on the current status and connected the dots on some new items that have come out. And yes there does appear to be connections to John McCain.
Email dengre if you can help out.
Helen Thomas asked the hard questions. Dana Perino then illustrated why sane people think that the White House lies, openly and brazenly. But what this video is really about is how some in the US have lost their moral compass.
There is NO JUSTIFICATION for torture. None. Ever. And for those who approve it, remember it is likely that you are authorizing it for your loved ones... your sons, brothers, cousins. Why should any country refrain from doing to US citizens what the US feels free to do to citizens of other countries as well as its own?
The Republican party has developed a moral and ethical morass so great, it's inconceivable that they'll recover from it. It should be rejected so utterly, so thoroughly that it is destroyed. No one, even a "moderate" Republican, should think that it's okay to associate with people who are so morally bankrupt that they think it's okay to lie with impunity, to torture, to scorn the law and the treaties of the United States of America.
This makes me sick at heart. From Scott Horton's article in Harpers on Torture:
In the last eighteen months, Antonin Scalia, one of the most influential judges in American history, has twice suggested that he would turn to a fictional television character named Jack Bauer to resolve legal questions about torture. The first time was in a speech in Canada, and the second, only three weeks ago, in an interview with the BBC. This is evidence of the unprecedented influence of a television program on one of the most important legal policy issues before our country today. And it is, or should be, very troubling. [...]
I discovered that when I gave interviews to major media on this subject, any time I used the word "torture" with reference to these techniques, the interview passage would not be used. At one point I was informed by a cable news network that "we put this on international, because we can't use that word on the domestic feed."
"That word" was torture. I was coached or told that the words "coercive interrogation technique" were fine, but "torture" was a red light. Why? The Administration objected vehemently to the use of this word. After all, President Bush has gone before the cameras and stated more than three dozen times "We do not torture." By using the T-word, I was told, I was challenging the honesty of the president. You just couldn't do that.
Military.com highlighted another JAG officer taking a stand on principle against the use of torture.
"It was with sadness that I signed my name this grey morning to a letter resigning my commission in the U.S. Navy," wrote Gig Harbor, Wash., resident and attorney-at-law Andrew Williams in a letter to The Peninsula Gateway last week. "There was a time when I served with pride ... Sadly, no more." [...]It was in the much-publicized interview two weeks ago between Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) and Brig. Gen. Thomas Hartmann, who is the chief legal adviser at the Pentagon's Office of Military Commissions, that led Williams to resign.
In the interview, Graham asked Hartmann how the uniformed legal community should respond if the Iranian government used waterboarding to torture a U.S. solider into disclosing when the next U.S. military operation would occur.
Hartmann responded: "I am not prepared to answer that question." [...]
Williams, 43, felt that Hartmann was admitting torture is now an acceptable interrogation technique in the United States -- an admission that did not sit well with him.
"There was this saying in the Marines: 'We don't lie, cheat or steal, or tolerate people who do,' " Williams said. "And that sort of echoed through the Navy."
I'm glad to see that there are officers like Andrew Williams and Ian Fishback who will stand up and say, 'This is not right. This is not what our military stands for.' I hope more join them.
Mr. Williams' complete letter is available here.
If you've not read Captain Fishback's letter to Senator McCain which he shared with the Washington Post, it is a must read item which I encourage you to read and book mark. It is so hard to choose an excerpt but this, I think, strikes at the heart of what he said.
