meta-roj

White House Fought New Curbs on Interrogations, Officials Say [ny times, january 13, 2005, registration]

The Senate had approved the new restrictions, by a 96-to-2 vote, as part of the intelligence reform legislation. They would have explicitly extended to intelligence officers a prohibition against torture or inhumane treatment, and would have required the C.I.A. as well as the Pentagon to report to Congress about the methods they were using.

…

In interviews on Wednesday, both Senator Susan Collins of Maine, a Republican negotiator, and Representative Jane Harman of California, a Democratic negotiator, said the lawmakers had ultimately decided that the question of whether to extend the restrictions to intelligence officers was too complex to be included in the legislation.

so, the senate stepped up to this job, 96-2, but ultimately it was canned by leadership because it was “too complex”? i thought the whole point of having senators and representatives was to deal with issues that were too complex for me to understand with the busy life i lead.

of course, i haven’t seen the language (anyone feel like diggint that far?), so i’m working on second- and third-hand accounts, but i think the issue is pretty clear.

in fact, the issue is so simple, our president has spoken directly to the question…

president george w. bush, june 27, 2003

The United States is committed to the worldwide elimination of torture and we are leading this fight by example. I call on all governments to join with the United States and the community of law-abiding nations in prohibiting, investigating, and prosecuting all acts of torture and in undertaking to prevent other cruel and unusual punishment.

do as we say, not as we do, right? this is how america leads by example in the 21st century?

The Arrival of Secret Law FAS Project on Government Secrecy, Volume 2004, Issue No. 100, November 14, 2004

“That is called ‘sensitive security information.’ She’s not allowed to see it, nor is anyone else,” he said.

Thus, in a qualitatively new development in U.S. governance, Americans can now be obligated to comply with legally-binding regulations that are unknown to them, and that indeed they are forbidden to know.

This is not some dismal Eastern European allegory.

this is not my america.

[via metafilter

several days ago, i wrote a bit about the sleeper cell that wasn’t, and i closed with this:

either there was a real detroit sleeper cell planning terrorist attacks, and my justice department screwed up the prosecution so badly that they’ll be out on the streets in a few years, or there wasn’t a real detroit sleeper cell, in which case my justice department spun its wheels trying to make terrorist charges stick where no terrorists exist.

today, i found a story from the associated press that describes an email [pdf] from special agent in charge daniel roberts on the subject. he asserts that the fbi “acted aggressively and worked very hard on this case in an effort to prevent a terrorist attack.”

taking daniel roberts at his word – and i have no reason to doubt the integrity or intent of the fbi or mr. roberts – i guess this means i have the answer: the justice department (and by this i mean attorney general ashcroft’s justice department) botched the prosecution of terrorists. i guess it’s a good thing these terrorists can be charged with something other than terrorism.

so there was a detroit terror cell? or shouldn’t i just accept the fbi view?

it’s the big story this week, but i want to emphasize one particularly disturbing statement.

General: Some abuse at Abu Ghraib amounted to torture [cnn, august 25, 2004]

He [general paul kern] said the investigation also found that at least eight “ghost” detainees were kept at Abu Ghraib. They were not registered on official logs and were allegedly moved around the facility and hidden from representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Intel Unit Members Faulted in Iraq Abuse [ap via abc news, august 25, 2004]

The nonmilitary interrogators had wider latitude in determining what techniques they could use. They also kept at least eight “ghost detainees” prisoners concealed from the International Committee of the Red Cross. One of those detainees died during interrogation.

you don’t “hide prisoners” and “move them around” and let them die during interrogation without the support of someone withsome power and influence in the facility. this can’t be just a few people doing bad things.

this is a story about one “ghost prisoner” that came back to life.

i knew guantanamo wasn’t big enough for this war on terror, but i assumed we’d build camps in canada to keep the detainees “off american soil” and away from the judicial system. nah. looks like we picked new york – camp wackenhut.

200 locked away & under the radar [new york daily news, august 19, 2004]

“Most of them were picked up in the aftermath of 9/11 and have been held without criminal charges or due process and, in some cases, without access to a lawyer,” Khan added. “The food is insufficient and inadequate, and even though some of the detainees have heart conditions or suffer from diabetes and ulcers, medical care is practically nonexistent.”

more on this story from democracy now and the hindustan times. don’t expect a lot of major-network coverage in the united states.

i also found a story about what it takes to get a congolese refugee out of the wackenhut detention center.

if you’d like a job, drop by the wackenhut career center, and you, too, can be in a position to abuse detainees, or maybe tattle on someone else that is. wackenhut is so good, they’ve got a whole website run by a union to keep track of their newsworthy activities. one interesting example has the company that runs security hired to test security – so we can invoke the whole “fox guarding the henhouse” line.

[core lead via boingboing]

this is not my justice department…

Justice Says Guns-Drawn School Raid Legal [ap via abc news, august 20, 2004]

A guns-drawn raid at a high school last year did not violate civil rights laws and the case is closed, the U.S. Justice Department said.

…

Fifteen officers entered Stratford High School’s main hallway and ordered 130 students to the floor Nov. 5 of last year. They used plastic ties to handcuff 18 students and school officials opened and searched 17 book bags using a drug dog.

Police found no drugs or weapons, but the raid frightened children, provoked marches and lawsuits and brought national media attention and the resignation of the school’s longtime principal.

the original story is covered here with video. the memory hole has more, including an unidentified person in what appears to be a military uniform.

at least these high school students are getting comfortable with our new security state.

this is sort of a follow-up to the rumsfeld comment on the subject. neither got much play in the media, both are shocking and… dare i say it… unamerican.

Family of Iraq Abuse Whistleblower Threatened [reuters, august 16, 2004]

Relatives of the U.S. soldier who sounded the alarm about abuse of Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib prison said on Monday the family was living in protective custody because of death threats against them.

the country that would never let this happen. almost never anyway. unless it were the actions of individuals. unauthorized. dare i say it… illegal. and we will certainly get to the bottom of these heinous acts. i’m sure we will.

i just feel compelled to point out that so far, i haven’t heard about any mid-level ior upper-level government official even getting fired, much less prosecuted, for the intelligence, strategic and human rights failures of the past several years.

and now the family of the person that called america to live up to her own standards has to live under protective custody?

not in my america.

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

these words were first read in public at independence square in philadelphia.

thomas jefferson walked independence square while writing the declaration.

now, the national park service wants to build a “security and bathroom building” on the square, and erect an 8-foot-tall fence across it.

i guess the point is to destroy independence square in order to save it.

we don’t need terrorists. we’re doing just fine destroying what we have, all by ourselves.

stories in a few places:

Proposal Would Fence Independence Square [new york newsday]
Independence Park security proposal would fence historic square [wnep]
Independence Park security proposal would fence historic square [centre daily times]

i’m going to come back to this – it’s been waiting for me to get into full-on rant mode before i hammer it out – but i want to get this quote in here now. this guy needs to be on the record.

U.S. links 35 arrests in Iowa to terror [des moines register, july 18, 2004]

” ‘Bona fide’ terrorism is a matter of semantics,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Murphy, who heads the criminal division of the U.S. attorney’s office in Cedar Rapids. “I don’t think you can draw conclusions based on what a person is convicted of.”

maybe i’m old-fashioned and don’t get this whole post-9/11 prosecutorial environment, but i was under the impression that the whole point of convicting someone was to draw conclusions.

abraham lincoln on the 1864 elections [national park service]

We can not have free government without elections; and if the rebellion could force us to forego, or postpone a national election it might fairly claim to have already conquered and ruined us.

probably the most interesting point of contact on this story is barlow. and don’t miss the comments there.

i just want to note that i still think that the elections in spain were more influenced by the deception in the wake of the attack (blaming the local terrorists without reliable intelligence) than the attack itself.

on the one hand, i appreciate the idea that the government is planning for worst-case scenarios (something they seem to have avoided completely when it comes to iraq and cuba. the problem, of course, is that we didn’t do this three years ago, so whatever plan gets cooked up under crisis is going to have about as much credibility as everything else the administration has been cooking for these years. there will be no public debate. there will be no airing of opinions. the administration will craft a plan and execute that plan. then we will deal with the fallout for generations.

update: more here.