Shortly after taking office, President Obama announced he'd close CIA prisons and end abusive interrogations of terrorism suspects by U.S. officials. But the Obama administration has notably preserved the right to continue "renditions" - the abduction and transfer of suspects to U.S. allies in its "war on terror," including allies notorious for the use of torture.
Although the Obama Administration in 2009 promised to monitor more closely the treatment of suspects it turned over to foreign prisons, the disturbing case of Gulet Mohamed, an American teenager interrogated under torture in Kuwait, casts doubt on the effectiveness of those so-called "diplomatic assurances." It's also raised questions about whether the "extraordinary rendition" program conducted by the Bush administration has now been transformed into an equally abusive proxy detention program run by its successor.
Whispers whirled around the White House, on The Hill, within the Department of Justice, and finally filtered down to the streets. In truth, talk could be heard on the avenues, where average Americans roam, long before declarations came from above. Should BP CEO Tony Hayward Go to Prison? The public wonders. What would the Obama Administration do. Countless clamored; with full knowledge that President Bush's DOJ Killed a Criminal Probe Into BP. It was believed that the potential indictments threatened the most senior officials. More recently, words of warrants have become a distinct possibility. Criminal charges are being considered against BP in regards to the Gulf oil rig tragedy.
On Tuesday, July 6, 2010, the United States filed a lawsuit against the State of Arizona to invalidate, and stop the enforcement of, S.B. 1070 (as amended by H.B. 2162).
The United States, suing on behalf of itself, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice, and the Department of State, challenged Arizona's new law and argued that:
1. The Arizona law, as a whole, is invalid because it sets forth a state-level immigration policy that interferes with the federal government's preeminent authority to administer and enforce immigration laws; and
2. Sections 2-6 of the Arizona law are invalid because each section either conflicts with, or undermines, established Congressional objectives, federal enforcement and policy priorities, and/or existing federal laws and Constitutional principles.
The pressure is growing on the Justice Department to produce supposedly "deleted" e-mails that could reveal whether government lawyers during the Bush administration were instructed to devise legal justifications for torture.
In reporting on the long-delayed release of the Justice Department's ethics report on the work of Bush administration lawyers who approved the torture of detainees, The New York Times on Saturday wrote that it "brings to a close a pivotal chapter in the debate over the legal limits of the Bush administration's fight against terrorism and whether its treatment of Qaeda prisoners amounted to torture."
In my analysis of Bybee's reliance on the use of the CIA's interrogation tactics within a training program called Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE), I recalled a couple written anecdotes on the subject I had read from books written by ex-SAS (British special forces, analogous to Delta Force) members in the 1990s. I've excerpted them below just to elucidate a couple points I was making in the previous entry.
In part 1, I outlined four categories of problems with Bybee's reasoning. In this piece, I'd like to tackle his (and CIA's) reliance on the use of these tactics in other contexts, most frequently as part of military counter-interrogation training.
In the first portion of the memo, pages 1-6, Bybee outlines some evidence CIA has provided him on the use of these techniques, in terms of the potential harm they cause. The premise of this is sound, but it falls down in Bybee and CIA's reliance on it, because in fact the evidence they're able to gather is far too scattered and in most cases, not nearly applicable enough for any surety as to the safety and harmlessness of these tactics.
Bybee primarily relies on the experience of the military's Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE) training program, where (voluntary members of the military) are put through a POW-camp escape training exercise, involving recapture and subsequent interrogation by a hostile government power. Inside an analysis of Bybee's use of this.
Digby and DDay have been covering the growing calls for the impeachment of 9th Circuit Court Judge Jay Bybee, the author of this OLC memorandum endorsing the legality of the CIA's proposed interrogation tactics on Abu Zubaydah.
I'd like to make my own run at this horrendous document. Many particular passages have been repeatedly quoted, but I don't want to lose the burning forest for the fetid, rotting trees on this one. The thesis of the document is deeply flawed, resting on numerous obviously ridiculous unstated assumptions.
(I'll be writing some more about this on the weekend. But at this point, the voter suppression front needs daily attention. - promoted by Paul Rosenberg)
It happened in 2004 and 2006, and it may be happening in 2008
In the 2008 election Americans may once again be seeing law enforcement turned into a tool of voter suppression.
It is illegal for law enforcement agents to use their authority to attempt to intimidate or suppress the vote. Section 11(b) of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) of 1965 states that no person “whether acting under color of law or otherwise,” shall intimidate, threaten, or coerce any individual forvoting or attempting to vote, or for attempting to assist others to vote. Section 12 of the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) of 1993provides for criminal penalties against any person who intimidates or attempts to intimidate any person for registering to vote, voting, or attempting to register or vote.
In the past few weeks, however, partisan forces have manufactured hysteria around the myth of “voter fraud” that they have used to help goad law-enforcement into intimidation and politically motivated investigations into eligible voters. As the election approaches Project Vote and other voting rights organizations are seeing law enforcement officials inserting themselves into election administration, and partisan pressure to coerce law enforcement agents into overreaching investigations into the eligibility of legal voters.
Yesterday, the Justice Department announced an agreement (PDF) to bring Arizona's Department of Economic Security, which administers Food Stamps and TANF, into compliance with the public agency registration provisions of the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA). The agreement comes three months after Project Vote and Demos sent Arizona Secretary of State Jan Brewer a notice letter (PDF) advising her that the state was not in compliance with the law and asking her to take steps to improve compliance to avoid litigation.
Steve Rosenfeld, writing in the journal Social Policy, has authored a comprehensive look at the recent history of partisan attacks on the voting process itself and the unfolding attempts to roll back all of the voting rights gains of the past 50 years that have gained speed and urgency under the Bush Administration.
Pointing out that modern voter suppression attempts and larger projects to reshape the entire electorate to favor conservatives no longer rely on the open fear and intimidation that characterized past practices from American history, Rosenfeld opens his in-depth survey with this observation,
"Jim Crow has returned to American elections, only in the 21st century he is apt to be a lawyer carrying a folder filled with briefing papers, proposed legislation and talking points about "voter fraud" and protecting the sanctity of the vote."
The ACLU has forced the release of a 2003 DOJ memo which lays out "a 'complete' legal framework for detentions and interrogations, based on the Constitution, the UN Convention Against Torture (CAT), US war crimes statutes, and other laws..." The 81 page document is basically a complicated series of legal opinions justifying the use of torture. Balkinization calls it what it is,"the torture memo to top all torture memos."
(I rarely do this, but what could be more important, or outrageous than this? - promoted by Paul Rosenberg)
Weekly Voting Rights News Update
By Erin Ferns
Tuesday, a federal court blocked Florida's "no match, no vote" law after finding it violated voting rights, just six weeks before the state's presidential primary. The so-called "common-sense anti-fraud measure" required election officials to match voter registration application information - including names, birthdays, driver's license and Social Security numbers - against federal databases before registering a person to vote. Although the error-prone procedure put hundreds of thousands of Floridian registrants at risk of disenfranchisement each year and a federal court struck down a similar Washington law for the very same reason, Secretary of State Kurt Browning said he would "immediately appeal," according to the Associated Press.
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