U.S. War Prisons Legal Vacuum for 14,000Sep 17, 3:45 PM (ET) |By PATRICK QUINN
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - In the few short years since the first shackled Afghan shuffled off to Guantanamo, the U.S. military has created a global network of overseas prisons, its islands of high security keeping 14,000 detainees beyond the reach of established law.
Disclosures of torture and long-term arbitrary detentions have won rebuke from leading voices including the U.N. secretary-general and the U.S. Supreme Court. But the bitterest words come from inside the system, the size of several major U.S. penitentiaries.
"It was hard to believe I'd get out," Baghdad shopkeeper Amjad Qassim al-Aliyawi told The Associated Press after his release - without charge - last month. "I lived with the Americans for one year and eight months as if I was living in hell."
Captured on battlefields, pulled from beds at midnight, grabbed off streets as suspected insurgents, tens of thousands now have passed through U.S. detention, the vast majority in Iraq.
Many say they were caught up in U.S. military sweeps, often interrogated around the clock, then released months or years later without apology, compensation or any word on why they were taken. Seventy to 90 percent of the Iraq detentions in 2003 were "mistakes," U.S. officers once told the international Red Cross. ...
Saturday, September 30, 2006
‘‘The world is beginning to doubt the moral basis of our fight against terrorism,’’ Powell wrote.
Powell, Rice fire off letters in clash over terror legislation as GOP defies Bush
By ANNE PLUMMER FLAHERTY - Associated Press Writer - 09/15/06
WASHINGTON — The battle between the White House and a group of powerful Republican senators over the treatment of terrorist suspects touched off warring letters from President Bush’s two secretaries of state.
As the clash intensified, the GOP-led Senate Armed Services Committee voted Thursday to defy Bush and approve terror-detainee legislation he has vowed to block.
Republican Sen. John Warner of Virginia, normally a Bush supporter, pushed the measure through his Armed Services Committee by a 15-9 vote, with Warner and three other GOP lawmakers joining Democrats.
But first, Colin Powell, who served during Bush’s first term, delivered a stinging blow to the administration by siding with the senators in opposition to the president’s plan to detain, interrogate and prosecute terror suspects.
All but rubbing in Powell’s previous post as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Bush’s father, the first President Bush, the letterhead identified its writer as ‘‘Gen. Colin L. Powell, USA (Retired).’’
‘‘The world is beginning to doubt the moral basis of our fight against terrorism,’’ Powell wrote.
Powell said Bush’s bill, by redefining the kind of treatment the Geneva Conventions allow, ‘‘would add to those doubts. Furthermore, it would put our own troops at risk.’’ ...
By ANNE PLUMMER FLAHERTY - Associated Press Writer - 09/15/06
WASHINGTON — The battle between the White House and a group of powerful Republican senators over the treatment of terrorist suspects touched off warring letters from President Bush’s two secretaries of state.
As the clash intensified, the GOP-led Senate Armed Services Committee voted Thursday to defy Bush and approve terror-detainee legislation he has vowed to block.
Republican Sen. John Warner of Virginia, normally a Bush supporter, pushed the measure through his Armed Services Committee by a 15-9 vote, with Warner and three other GOP lawmakers joining Democrats.
But first, Colin Powell, who served during Bush’s first term, delivered a stinging blow to the administration by siding with the senators in opposition to the president’s plan to detain, interrogate and prosecute terror suspects.
All but rubbing in Powell’s previous post as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Bush’s father, the first President Bush, the letterhead identified its writer as ‘‘Gen. Colin L. Powell, USA (Retired).’’
‘‘The world is beginning to doubt the moral basis of our fight against terrorism,’’ Powell wrote.
Powell said Bush’s bill, by redefining the kind of treatment the Geneva Conventions allow, ‘‘would add to those doubts. Furthermore, it would put our own troops at risk.’’ ...
UN rights envoys condemn Bush plan on interrogation ...would breach the Geneva Conventions
U.N. rights envoys condemn Bush plan on interrogation | Sep 21, 4:05 PM (ET) | By Stephanie Nebehay
GENEVA (Reuters) - United Nations human rights investigators said on Thursday that legislation proposed by President Bush for tough interrogations of foreign terrorism suspects would breach the Geneva Conventions.
In a statement to the U.N. Human Rights Council, the five independent envoys also said Washington's admission of secret detention centres abroad pointed to "very serious human rights violations in relation to the hunt for alleged terrorists."
They again called for the closure of the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where hundreds of foreign terrorism suspects are being held, alleging continued violations of international law on torture and arbitrary detention. ...
GENEVA (Reuters) - United Nations human rights investigators said on Thursday that legislation proposed by President Bush for tough interrogations of foreign terrorism suspects would breach the Geneva Conventions.
In a statement to the U.N. Human Rights Council, the five independent envoys also said Washington's admission of secret detention centres abroad pointed to "very serious human rights violations in relation to the hunt for alleged terrorists."
They again called for the closure of the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where hundreds of foreign terrorism suspects are being held, alleging continued violations of international law on torture and arbitrary detention. ...
CIA ‘refused to operate’ secret jails
CIA ‘refused to operate’ secret jails | By Guy Dinmore in Washington | Published: September 20 2006 22:07 | Last updated: September 20 2006 22:07
The Bush administration had to empty its secret prisons and transfer terror suspects to the military-run detention centre at Guantánamo this month in part because CIA interrogators had refused to carry out further interrogations and run the secret facilities, according to former CIA officials and people close to the programme.
The former officials said the CIA interrogators’ refusal was a factor in forcing the Bush administration to act earlier than it might have wished. ...
The Bush administration had to empty its secret prisons and transfer terror suspects to the military-run detention centre at Guantánamo this month in part because CIA interrogators had refused to carry out further interrogations and run the secret facilities, according to former CIA officials and people close to the programme.
The former officials said the CIA interrogators’ refusal was a factor in forcing the Bush administration to act earlier than it might have wished. ...
one of the detainees was strapped to a chair by prison guards and beaten and tortured to the point of death
UK suspects in new claims of torture at Guantanamo | By Robert Verkaik, Legal Affairs Correspondent | Published: 21 September 2006
The extent of the torture and abuse that British residents held at Guantanamo Bay claim to have suffered is revealed for the first time in a series of recently declassified interviews between the detainees and their human rights lawyers.
Documents submitted to the American courts allege that one of the detainees was strapped to a chair by prison guards and beaten and tortured to the point of death.
Other British suspects are still being held in solitary confinement, four years after their capture, where they are subjected to extreme temperatures, sleep deprivation and the confiscation of the most basic necessities, including lavatory paper and blankets.
None has been charged with any crime.
Some of the most serious allegations of torture concern the treatment of Shaker Aamer, a Saudi national who until his arrest four years ago had been living in London with his wife and four children.
In June this year, Mr Aamer claims he was badly beaten and tortured because he failed to provide a retina scan and fingerprints to the camp authorities. He says he was strapped to a chair, fully restrained at the head, arms and legs.
The habeas corpus motion filed in the court of the District of Columbia states: "The MPs [military police] inflicted so much pain, Mr Aamer said he thought he was going to die. The MPs pressed on pressure points all over his body: his temples, just under his jawline, in the hollow beneath his ears. They choked him. They bent his nose so hard he thought it would break.
"They pinched his thighs and feet constantly. They gouged his eyes. They held his eyes open and shined a Maglite [torch] in them for minutes on end, generating intense heat. They bent his fingers until he screamed. When he screamed, they cut off his airway, then put a mask on him so he could not cry out."
Mr Aamer, who had been resident in Britain since 1996, was used as key negotiator on behalf of the prisoners during recent hunger strikes.
But when a settlement between the prisoners and the guards broke down last year he was sent to solitary confinement. This month he was visited by his lawyer from the human rights charity Reprieve. Mr Aamer told the lawyer that he had not seen the sun for 79 days and had had no meaningful contact with the outside world.
In a harrowing account of his torture he said: "At any moment, they can strip you naked. They will put your head in the toilet in the name of security. It is all about humiliation. They are trying to break me."
Bisher al-Rawi, another British resident captured by the Americans in Gambia after alleged collusion between the CIA and MI5 officers, is also being held in solitary confinement at another detention centre known as Camp V.
Mr al-Rawi has stopped co-operating with his interrogators because they are still seeking answers to the same questions they were asking when he was first arrested in 2002.
His resistance has cost him the few privileges he had and led to his interrogators using torture lasting for weeks. The most common form of torture he has been forced to endure is the use of extreme temperatures in the cells. During the day the guards let the temperatures reach 100 degrees and in the night take away his sheet and use the air conditioning system to create freezing conditions
Zachary Katznelson, the Reprieve lawyer who interviewed the men in Guantanamo, said the torture had been so severe that Mr Al Rawi had suffered wheezing and loss of consciousness.
The evidence relating to Mr al-Rawi is to be used to support an appeal already lodged at the High Court in London. Two other British residents, Omar Deghayes and Ahmed Errachidi, are also being held in Camp V.
Ahmed Belbacha and Abdennour Sameur are in Camp II. Jamil al-Banna is in Camp IV, the lowest security rated part of the prison. An eighth man, Binyam Mohamed, is due to appear before a military commission. All the men remain defiant and protest their innocence.
Reprieve, the British based human rights charity representing the men, says their detention is a gross breach of international law and an infringement of the Geneva Conventions.
The extent of the torture and abuse that British residents held at Guantanamo Bay claim to have suffered is revealed for the first time in a series of recently declassified interviews between the detainees and their human rights lawyers.
Documents submitted to the American courts allege that one of the detainees was strapped to a chair by prison guards and beaten and tortured to the point of death.
Other British suspects are still being held in solitary confinement, four years after their capture, where they are subjected to extreme temperatures, sleep deprivation and the confiscation of the most basic necessities, including lavatory paper and blankets.
None has been charged with any crime.
Some of the most serious allegations of torture concern the treatment of Shaker Aamer, a Saudi national who until his arrest four years ago had been living in London with his wife and four children. ...
The extent of the torture and abuse that British residents held at Guantanamo Bay claim to have suffered is revealed for the first time in a series of recently declassified interviews between the detainees and their human rights lawyers.
Documents submitted to the American courts allege that one of the detainees was strapped to a chair by prison guards and beaten and tortured to the point of death.
Other British suspects are still being held in solitary confinement, four years after their capture, where they are subjected to extreme temperatures, sleep deprivation and the confiscation of the most basic necessities, including lavatory paper and blankets.
None has been charged with any crime.
Some of the most serious allegations of torture concern the treatment of Shaker Aamer, a Saudi national who until his arrest four years ago had been living in London with his wife and four children.
In June this year, Mr Aamer claims he was badly beaten and tortured because he failed to provide a retina scan and fingerprints to the camp authorities. He says he was strapped to a chair, fully restrained at the head, arms and legs.
The habeas corpus motion filed in the court of the District of Columbia states: "The MPs [military police] inflicted so much pain, Mr Aamer said he thought he was going to die. The MPs pressed on pressure points all over his body: his temples, just under his jawline, in the hollow beneath his ears. They choked him. They bent his nose so hard he thought it would break.
"They pinched his thighs and feet constantly. They gouged his eyes. They held his eyes open and shined a Maglite [torch] in them for minutes on end, generating intense heat. They bent his fingers until he screamed. When he screamed, they cut off his airway, then put a mask on him so he could not cry out."
Mr Aamer, who had been resident in Britain since 1996, was used as key negotiator on behalf of the prisoners during recent hunger strikes.
But when a settlement between the prisoners and the guards broke down last year he was sent to solitary confinement. This month he was visited by his lawyer from the human rights charity Reprieve. Mr Aamer told the lawyer that he had not seen the sun for 79 days and had had no meaningful contact with the outside world.
In a harrowing account of his torture he said: "At any moment, they can strip you naked. They will put your head in the toilet in the name of security. It is all about humiliation. They are trying to break me."
Bisher al-Rawi, another British resident captured by the Americans in Gambia after alleged collusion between the CIA and MI5 officers, is also being held in solitary confinement at another detention centre known as Camp V.
Mr al-Rawi has stopped co-operating with his interrogators because they are still seeking answers to the same questions they were asking when he was first arrested in 2002.
His resistance has cost him the few privileges he had and led to his interrogators using torture lasting for weeks. The most common form of torture he has been forced to endure is the use of extreme temperatures in the cells. During the day the guards let the temperatures reach 100 degrees and in the night take away his sheet and use the air conditioning system to create freezing conditions
Zachary Katznelson, the Reprieve lawyer who interviewed the men in Guantanamo, said the torture had been so severe that Mr Al Rawi had suffered wheezing and loss of consciousness.
The evidence relating to Mr al-Rawi is to be used to support an appeal already lodged at the High Court in London. Two other British residents, Omar Deghayes and Ahmed Errachidi, are also being held in Camp V.
Ahmed Belbacha and Abdennour Sameur are in Camp II. Jamil al-Banna is in Camp IV, the lowest security rated part of the prison. An eighth man, Binyam Mohamed, is due to appear before a military commission. All the men remain defiant and protest their innocence.
Reprieve, the British based human rights charity representing the men, says their detention is a gross breach of international law and an infringement of the Geneva Conventions.
The extent of the torture and abuse that British residents held at Guantanamo Bay claim to have suffered is revealed for the first time in a series of recently declassified interviews between the detainees and their human rights lawyers.
Documents submitted to the American courts allege that one of the detainees was strapped to a chair by prison guards and beaten and tortured to the point of death.
Other British suspects are still being held in solitary confinement, four years after their capture, where they are subjected to extreme temperatures, sleep deprivation and the confiscation of the most basic necessities, including lavatory paper and blankets.
None has been charged with any crime.
Some of the most serious allegations of torture concern the treatment of Shaker Aamer, a Saudi national who until his arrest four years ago had been living in London with his wife and four children. ...
two powerful reminders of the real issue: when a government puts itself above the law, innocent people are put at risk
Rules for the Real WorldPublished: September 20, 2006
The White House has been acting lately as though the struggle over the proper way to handle prisoners is a debate about how tough to get with Osama bin Laden if he’s ever actually caught. This week, we’ve had two powerful reminders of the real issue: when a government puts itself above the law, innocent people are put at risk.
On Monday, Canada issued a scathing report about the story of a Canadian citizen, Maher Arar, who was abducted by American agents in late 2002 and turned over to Syrian authorities, who obligingly tortured him for 10 months until he signed a transparently false confession. The report said Mr. Arar never had any connection to terrorism. But the United States stonewalled Canada’s investigation, which concluded that the Americans misled Canada about their plans for Mr. Arar. Sending him to Syria, where he would certainly be tortured, was not just immoral and un-American, it was a violation of international law.
In Iraq, American authorities have been holding an Iraqi-born photographer for The Associated Press for five months without charging him with any crime. Military officials say they have evidence that Bilal Hussein has “strong ties” to insurgents, but refuse to show it to Mr. Hussein, his lawyers, The A.P. or even to the Iraqi courts. We don’t know the truth. But we know how to get at it: If the Americans have evidence against Mr. Hussein, they should present it. If he committed a crime, he should be charged. If not, he should be set free.
These two cases illustrate vividly why Congress needs to pass an effective law on the handling of prisoners that not only provides for legal military tribunals to try dangerous men like Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who is believed to have organized the 9/11 attacks, but also deals with the other men, perhaps hundreds, wrongly imprisoned at Guantánamo Bay, and sets rules for the future. ...
The White House has been acting lately as though the struggle over the proper way to handle prisoners is a debate about how tough to get with Osama bin Laden if he’s ever actually caught. This week, we’ve had two powerful reminders of the real issue: when a government puts itself above the law, innocent people are put at risk.
On Monday, Canada issued a scathing report about the story of a Canadian citizen, Maher Arar, who was abducted by American agents in late 2002 and turned over to Syrian authorities, who obligingly tortured him for 10 months until he signed a transparently false confession. The report said Mr. Arar never had any connection to terrorism. But the United States stonewalled Canada’s investigation, which concluded that the Americans misled Canada about their plans for Mr. Arar. Sending him to Syria, where he would certainly be tortured, was not just immoral and un-American, it was a violation of international law.
In Iraq, American authorities have been holding an Iraqi-born photographer for The Associated Press for five months without charging him with any crime. Military officials say they have evidence that Bilal Hussein has “strong ties” to insurgents, but refuse to show it to Mr. Hussein, his lawyers, The A.P. or even to the Iraqi courts. We don’t know the truth. But we know how to get at it: If the Americans have evidence against Mr. Hussein, they should present it. If he committed a crime, he should be charged. If not, he should be set free.
These two cases illustrate vividly why Congress needs to pass an effective law on the handling of prisoners that not only provides for legal military tribunals to try dangerous men like Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who is believed to have organized the 9/11 attacks, but also deals with the other men, perhaps hundreds, wrongly imprisoned at Guantánamo Bay, and sets rules for the future. ...
bill immunizes U.S. officials from prosecution for cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment of detainees . .. RETROSPECTIVELY!
Many Rights in U.S. Legal System Absent in New Bill | By R. Jeffrey Smith | Washington Post Staff Writer | Friday, September 29, 2006; Page A13
The military trials bill approved by Congress lends legislative support for the first time to broad rules for the detention, interrogation, prosecution and trials of terrorism suspects far different from those in the familiar American criminal justice system.
President Bush's argument that the government requires extraordinary power to respond to the unusual threat of terrorism helped him win final support for a system of military trials with highly truncated defendant's rights. The United States used similar trials on just four occasions: during the country's revolution, the Mexican-American War, the Civil War and World War II.
...
The bill rejects the right to a speedy trial and limits the traditional right to self-representation by requiring that defendants accept military defense attorneys. Panels of military officers need not reach unanimous agreement to win convictions, except in death penalty cases, and appeals must go through a second military panel before reaching a federal civilian court.
By writing into law for the first time the definition of an "unlawful enemy combatant," the bill empowers the executive branch to detain indefinitely anyone it determines to have "purposefully and materially" supported anti-U.S. hostilities. Only foreign nationals among those detainees can be tried by the military commissions, as they are known, and sentenced to decades in jail or put to death.
At the same time, the bill immunizes U.S. officials from prosecution for cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment of detainees who the military and the CIA captured before the end of last year. It gives the president a dominant but not exclusive role in setting the rules for future interrogations of terrorism suspects. ...
...
University of Texas constitutional law professor Sanford V. Levinson described the bill in an Internet posting as the mark of a "banana republic." Yale Law School Dean Harold Koh said that "the image of Congress rushing to strip jurisdiction from the courts in response to a politically created emergency is really quite shocking, and it's not clear that most of the members understand what they've done."
...
Georgetown University law professor Neal Katyal said the bill's creation of two systems of justice -- military commissions for foreign nationals and regular criminal trials for U.S. citizens -- may violate the Constitution's 14th Amendment, which requires equal protection of the laws to anyone under U.S. jurisdiction.
"If you're an American citizen, you get the Cadillac system of justice. If you're a foreigner or a green-card holder, you get this beat-up-Chevy version," he said. ...
The military trials bill approved by Congress lends legislative support for the first time to broad rules for the detention, interrogation, prosecution and trials of terrorism suspects far different from those in the familiar American criminal justice system.
President Bush's argument that the government requires extraordinary power to respond to the unusual threat of terrorism helped him win final support for a system of military trials with highly truncated defendant's rights. The United States used similar trials on just four occasions: during the country's revolution, the Mexican-American War, the Civil War and World War II.
...
The bill rejects the right to a speedy trial and limits the traditional right to self-representation by requiring that defendants accept military defense attorneys. Panels of military officers need not reach unanimous agreement to win convictions, except in death penalty cases, and appeals must go through a second military panel before reaching a federal civilian court.
By writing into law for the first time the definition of an "unlawful enemy combatant," the bill empowers the executive branch to detain indefinitely anyone it determines to have "purposefully and materially" supported anti-U.S. hostilities. Only foreign nationals among those detainees can be tried by the military commissions, as they are known, and sentenced to decades in jail or put to death.
At the same time, the bill immunizes U.S. officials from prosecution for cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment of detainees who the military and the CIA captured before the end of last year. It gives the president a dominant but not exclusive role in setting the rules for future interrogations of terrorism suspects. ...
...
University of Texas constitutional law professor Sanford V. Levinson described the bill in an Internet posting as the mark of a "banana republic." Yale Law School Dean Harold Koh said that "the image of Congress rushing to strip jurisdiction from the courts in response to a politically created emergency is really quite shocking, and it's not clear that most of the members understand what they've done."
...
Georgetown University law professor Neal Katyal said the bill's creation of two systems of justice -- military commissions for foreign nationals and regular criminal trials for U.S. citizens -- may violate the Constitution's 14th Amendment, which requires equal protection of the laws to anyone under U.S. jurisdiction.
"If you're an American citizen, you get the Cadillac system of justice. If you're a foreigner or a green-card holder, you get this beat-up-Chevy version," he said. ...
Habeas Corpus, R.I.P. (1215 - 2006) .... this is about torturing helpless human beings without any proof they are our enemies.
Molly Ivins: Habeas Corpus, R.I.P. (1215 - 2006) | Posted on Sep 27, 2006 | By Molly Ivins
With a smug stroke of his pen, President Bush is set to wipe out a safeguard against illegal imprisonment that has endured as a cornerstone of legal justice since the Magna Carta.
AUSTIN, Texas—Oh dear. I’m sure he didn’t mean it. In Illinois’ Sixth Congressional District, long represented by Henry Hyde, Republican candidate Peter Roskam accused his Democratic opponent, Tammy Duckworth, of planning to “cut and run” on Iraq.
Duckworth is a former Army major and chopper pilot who lost both legs in Iraq after her helicopter got hit by an RPG. “I just could not believe he would say that to me,” said Duckworth, who walks on artificial legs and uses a cane. Every election cycle produces some wincers, but how do you apologize for that one?
The legislative equivalent of that remark is the detainee bill now being passed by Congress. Beloveds, this is so much worse than even that pathetic deal reached last Thursday between the White House and Republican Sens. John Warner, John McCain and Lindsey Graham. The White House has since reinserted a number of “technical fixes” that were the point of the putative “compromise.” It leaves the president with the power to decide who is an enemy combatant.
This bill is not a national security issue—this is about torturing helpless human beings without any proof they are our enemies. Perhaps this could be considered if we knew the administration would use the power with enormous care and thoughtfulness. But of the over 700 prisoners sent to Gitmo, only 10 have ever been formally charged with anything. Among other things, this bill is a CYA for torture of the innocent that has already taken place.
Death by torture by Americans was first reported in 2003 in a New York Times article by Carlotta Gall. The military had announced the prisoner died of a heart attack, but when Gall saw the death certificate, written in English and issued by the military, it said the cause of death was homicide. The “heart attack” came after he had been beaten so often on this legs that they had “basically been pulpified,” according to the coroner. ...
...
The bill also expands the definition of an unlawful enemy combatant to cover anyone who has “has purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States.” Quick, define “purposefully and materially.” One person has already been charged with aiding terrorists because he sold a satellite TV package that includes the Hezbollah network.
The bill simply removes a suspect’s right to challenge his detention in court. This is a rule of law that goes back to the Magna Carta in 1215. That pretty much leaves the barn door open.
As Vladimir Bukovsky, the Soviet dissident, wrote, an intelligence service free to torture soon “degenerates into a playground for sadists.” But not unbridled sadism—you will be relieved that the compromise took out the words permitting interrogation involving “severe pain” and substituted “serious pain,” which is defined as “bodily injury that involves extreme physical pain.”
In July 2003, George Bush said in a speech: “The United States is committed to worldwide elimination of torture, and we are leading this fight by example. Freedom from torture is an inalienable human right. Yet torture continues to be practiced around the world by rogue regimes, whose cruel methods match their determination to crush the human spirit.”
Fellow citizens, this bill throws out legal and moral restraints as the president deems it necessary—these are fundamental principles of basic decency, as well as law. ...
With a smug stroke of his pen, President Bush is set to wipe out a safeguard against illegal imprisonment that has endured as a cornerstone of legal justice since the Magna Carta.
AUSTIN, Texas—Oh dear. I’m sure he didn’t mean it. In Illinois’ Sixth Congressional District, long represented by Henry Hyde, Republican candidate Peter Roskam accused his Democratic opponent, Tammy Duckworth, of planning to “cut and run” on Iraq.
Duckworth is a former Army major and chopper pilot who lost both legs in Iraq after her helicopter got hit by an RPG. “I just could not believe he would say that to me,” said Duckworth, who walks on artificial legs and uses a cane. Every election cycle produces some wincers, but how do you apologize for that one?
The legislative equivalent of that remark is the detainee bill now being passed by Congress. Beloveds, this is so much worse than even that pathetic deal reached last Thursday between the White House and Republican Sens. John Warner, John McCain and Lindsey Graham. The White House has since reinserted a number of “technical fixes” that were the point of the putative “compromise.” It leaves the president with the power to decide who is an enemy combatant.
This bill is not a national security issue—this is about torturing helpless human beings without any proof they are our enemies. Perhaps this could be considered if we knew the administration would use the power with enormous care and thoughtfulness. But of the over 700 prisoners sent to Gitmo, only 10 have ever been formally charged with anything. Among other things, this bill is a CYA for torture of the innocent that has already taken place.
Death by torture by Americans was first reported in 2003 in a New York Times article by Carlotta Gall. The military had announced the prisoner died of a heart attack, but when Gall saw the death certificate, written in English and issued by the military, it said the cause of death was homicide. The “heart attack” came after he had been beaten so often on this legs that they had “basically been pulpified,” according to the coroner. ...
...
The bill also expands the definition of an unlawful enemy combatant to cover anyone who has “has purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States.” Quick, define “purposefully and materially.” One person has already been charged with aiding terrorists because he sold a satellite TV package that includes the Hezbollah network.
The bill simply removes a suspect’s right to challenge his detention in court. This is a rule of law that goes back to the Magna Carta in 1215. That pretty much leaves the barn door open.
As Vladimir Bukovsky, the Soviet dissident, wrote, an intelligence service free to torture soon “degenerates into a playground for sadists.” But not unbridled sadism—you will be relieved that the compromise took out the words permitting interrogation involving “severe pain” and substituted “serious pain,” which is defined as “bodily injury that involves extreme physical pain.”
In July 2003, George Bush said in a speech: “The United States is committed to worldwide elimination of torture, and we are leading this fight by example. Freedom from torture is an inalienable human right. Yet torture continues to be practiced around the world by rogue regimes, whose cruel methods match their determination to crush the human spirit.”
Fellow citizens, this bill throws out legal and moral restraints as the president deems it necessary—these are fundamental principles of basic decency, as well as law. ...
Wednesday, September 20, 2006
[Bush torture techniques] might benefit from knowing a bit of their historical origins and from hearing accounts of those who have experienced them
Call Cruelty What It Is | By Tom Malinowski | Monday, September 18, 2006; Page A17
President Bush is urging Congress to let the CIA keep using "alternative" interrogation procedures -- which include, according to published accounts, forcing prisoners to stand for 40 hours, depriving them of sleep and use of the "cold cell," in which the prisoner is left naked in a cell kept near 50 degrees and doused with cold water.
Bush insists that these techniques are not torture -- after all, they don't involve pulling out fingernails or applying electric shocks. He even says that he "would hope" the standards he's proposing are adopted by other countries. But before he again invites America's enemies to use such "alternative" methods on captured Americans, he might benefit from knowing a bit of their historical origins and from hearing accounts of those who have experienced them. With that in mind, here are some suggestions for the president's reading list.
He might begin with Robert Conquest's classic work on Stalin, "The Great Terror." Conquest wrote: "When there was time, the basic [Soviet Secret police] method for obtaining confessions and breaking the accused man was the 'conveyor' -- continual interrogation by relays of police for hours and days on end. As with many phenomena of the Stalin period, it has the advantage that it could not easily be condemned by any simple principle. Clearly, it amounted to unfair pressure after a certain time and to actual physical torture later still, but when? . . . At any rate, after even twelve hours, it is extremely uncomfortable. After a day, it becomes very hard. And after two or three days, the victim is actually physically poisoned by fatigue. It was as painful as any torture."
Conquest stated: "Interrogation usually took place at night and with the accused just roused -- often only fifteen minutes after going to sleep. The glaring lights at the interrogation had a disorientating effect." He quoted a Czech prisoner, Evzen Loebl, who described "having to be on his feet eighteen hours a day, sixteen of which were devoted to interrogation. During the six-hour sleep period, the warder pounded on the door every ten minutes. . . . If the banging did not wake him, a kick from the warder would. After two or three weeks, his feet were swollen and every inch of his body ached at the slightest touch; even washing became a torture."
Conquest quoted a Polish prisoner, Z. Stypulkowski, from 1945: "Cold, hunger, the bright light and especially sleeplessness. The cold is not terrific. But when the victim is weakened by hunger and sleeplessness, then the six or seven degrees above the freezing point make him tremble all the time. . . . After fifty or sixty interrogations with cold and hunger and almost no sleep, a man becomes like an automaton -- his eyes are bright, his legs swollen, his hands trembling. In this state, he is often convinced he is guilty." ...
President Bush is urging Congress to let the CIA keep using "alternative" interrogation procedures -- which include, according to published accounts, forcing prisoners to stand for 40 hours, depriving them of sleep and use of the "cold cell," in which the prisoner is left naked in a cell kept near 50 degrees and doused with cold water.
Bush insists that these techniques are not torture -- after all, they don't involve pulling out fingernails or applying electric shocks. He even says that he "would hope" the standards he's proposing are adopted by other countries. But before he again invites America's enemies to use such "alternative" methods on captured Americans, he might benefit from knowing a bit of their historical origins and from hearing accounts of those who have experienced them. With that in mind, here are some suggestions for the president's reading list.
He might begin with Robert Conquest's classic work on Stalin, "The Great Terror." Conquest wrote: "When there was time, the basic [Soviet Secret police] method for obtaining confessions and breaking the accused man was the 'conveyor' -- continual interrogation by relays of police for hours and days on end. As with many phenomena of the Stalin period, it has the advantage that it could not easily be condemned by any simple principle. Clearly, it amounted to unfair pressure after a certain time and to actual physical torture later still, but when? . . . At any rate, after even twelve hours, it is extremely uncomfortable. After a day, it becomes very hard. And after two or three days, the victim is actually physically poisoned by fatigue. It was as painful as any torture."
Conquest stated: "Interrogation usually took place at night and with the accused just roused -- often only fifteen minutes after going to sleep. The glaring lights at the interrogation had a disorientating effect." He quoted a Czech prisoner, Evzen Loebl, who described "having to be on his feet eighteen hours a day, sixteen of which were devoted to interrogation. During the six-hour sleep period, the warder pounded on the door every ten minutes. . . . If the banging did not wake him, a kick from the warder would. After two or three weeks, his feet were swollen and every inch of his body ached at the slightest touch; even washing became a torture."
Conquest quoted a Polish prisoner, Z. Stypulkowski, from 1945: "Cold, hunger, the bright light and especially sleeplessness. The cold is not terrific. But when the victim is weakened by hunger and sleeplessness, then the six or seven degrees above the freezing point make him tremble all the time. . . . After fifty or sixty interrogations with cold and hunger and almost no sleep, a man becomes like an automaton -- his eyes are bright, his legs swollen, his hands trembling. In this state, he is often convinced he is guilty." ...
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
The United States "very likely" sent a Canadian software engineer to Syria, where he was tortured
Canada falsely accused torture victim | By ROB GILLIES, Associated Press Writer Tue Sep 19, 9:23 AM ET
TORONTO - The United States "very likely" sent a Canadian software engineer to
Syria, where he was tortured, based on the false accusation by Canadian authorities that he was suspected of links to al-Qaida, according to a new government report.
ADVERTISEMENT
Syrian-born Maher Arar was exonerated of all suspicion of terrorist activity by the 2 1/2-year commission of inquiry into his case, which urged the Canadian government to offer him financial compensation. Arar is perhaps the world's best-known case of extraordinary rendition — the U.S. transfer of foreign terror suspects to third countries without court approval.
"I am able to say categorically that there is no evidence to indicate that Mr. Arar has committed any offense or that his activities constitute a threat to the security of Canada," Justice Dennis O'Connor said Monday in a three-volume report on the findings of the inquiry, part of which was made public. ...
TORONTO - The United States "very likely" sent a Canadian software engineer to
Syria, where he was tortured, based on the false accusation by Canadian authorities that he was suspected of links to al-Qaida, according to a new government report.
ADVERTISEMENT
Syrian-born Maher Arar was exonerated of all suspicion of terrorist activity by the 2 1/2-year commission of inquiry into his case, which urged the Canadian government to offer him financial compensation. Arar is perhaps the world's best-known case of extraordinary rendition — the U.S. transfer of foreign terror suspects to third countries without court approval.
"I am able to say categorically that there is no evidence to indicate that Mr. Arar has committed any offense or that his activities constitute a threat to the security of Canada," Justice Dennis O'Connor said Monday in a three-volume report on the findings of the inquiry, part of which was made public. ...
Carter says Bush backs torture, shrinks U.S. influence: "They have redefined torture to make it convenient for them,"
Carter says Bush backs torture, shrinks U.S. influence | Mon Sep 18, 2006 3:47pm ET | By John Whitesides, Political Correspondent
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter said on Monday the Bush administration had eroded America's global influence with its conduct in Iraq and by condoning the torture of terrorism suspects.
"They have redefined torture to make it convenient for them," Carter said of the Bush administration in an interview with Reuters.
"Things that are unanimously almost or globally assumed to be torture, they claim that this is not torture. I don't think there is any doubt that is what they are doing," said Carter, a Democrat who was president from 1977 to 1981.
He has since been a leading voice on global human rights issues and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002.
Carter, 81, said he was "filled with admiration" for Republican Sens. John McCain and John Warner and former Secretary of State Colin Powell for their effort last week to block President George W. Bush's policies on the treatment of suspected terrorists. The White House and senators are continuing talks in search of a compromise.
"We've lost the support and trust and confidence and admiration that we've had for generations," Carter said, adding the administration "has stonewalled so they can continue to perpetrate this illegal punishment."
"They have obviously subverted facts, that has been proven, and subversion of the law is now becoming more and more apparent," he said, referring to the administration's repeated appeals of court rulings concerning the treatment and legal rights of prisoners at the Guantanamo prison in Cuba. ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter said on Monday the Bush administration had eroded America's global influence with its conduct in Iraq and by condoning the torture of terrorism suspects.
"They have redefined torture to make it convenient for them," Carter said of the Bush administration in an interview with Reuters.
"Things that are unanimously almost or globally assumed to be torture, they claim that this is not torture. I don't think there is any doubt that is what they are doing," said Carter, a Democrat who was president from 1977 to 1981.
He has since been a leading voice on global human rights issues and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002.
Carter, 81, said he was "filled with admiration" for Republican Sens. John McCain and John Warner and former Secretary of State Colin Powell for their effort last week to block President George W. Bush's policies on the treatment of suspected terrorists. The White House and senators are continuing talks in search of a compromise.
"We've lost the support and trust and confidence and admiration that we've had for generations," Carter said, adding the administration "has stonewalled so they can continue to perpetrate this illegal punishment."
"They have obviously subverted facts, that has been proven, and subversion of the law is now becoming more and more apparent," he said, referring to the administration's repeated appeals of court rulings concerning the treatment and legal rights of prisoners at the Guantanamo prison in Cuba. ...
Monday, September 18, 2006
U.S. Holds AP Photographer in Iraq 5 Mos ... not provided any concrete evidence to back up the vague allegations
U.S. Holds AP Photographer in Iraq 5 Mos | Sep 17, 2:38 PM (ET) | By ROBERT TANNER
The U.S. military in Iraq has imprisoned an Associated Press photographer for five months, accusing him of being a security threat but never filing charges or permitting a public hearing.
Military officials said Bilal Hussein, an Iraqi citizen, was being held for "imperative reasons of security" under United Nations resolutions. AP executives said the news cooperative's review of Hussein's work did not find anything to indicate inappropriate contact with insurgents, and any evidence against him should be brought to the Iraqi criminal justice system.
Hussein, 35, is a native of Fallujah who began work for the AP in September 2004. He photographed events in Fallujah and Ramadi until he was detained on April 12 of this year.
"We want the rule of law to prevail. He either needs to be charged or released. Indefinite detention is not acceptable," said Tom Curley, AP's president and chief executive officer. "We've come to the conclusion that this is unacceptable under Iraqi law, or Geneva Conventions, or any military procedure."
Hussein is one of an estimated 14,000 people detained by the U.S. military worldwide - 13,000 of them in Iraq. They are held in limbo where few are ever charged with a specific crime or given a chance before any court or tribunal to argue for their freedom.
In Hussein's case, the military has not provided any concrete evidence to back up the vague allegations they have raised about him, Curley and other AP executives said. ...
The U.S. military in Iraq has imprisoned an Associated Press photographer for five months, accusing him of being a security threat but never filing charges or permitting a public hearing.
Military officials said Bilal Hussein, an Iraqi citizen, was being held for "imperative reasons of security" under United Nations resolutions. AP executives said the news cooperative's review of Hussein's work did not find anything to indicate inappropriate contact with insurgents, and any evidence against him should be brought to the Iraqi criminal justice system.
Hussein, 35, is a native of Fallujah who began work for the AP in September 2004. He photographed events in Fallujah and Ramadi until he was detained on April 12 of this year.
"We want the rule of law to prevail. He either needs to be charged or released. Indefinite detention is not acceptable," said Tom Curley, AP's president and chief executive officer. "We've come to the conclusion that this is unacceptable under Iraqi law, or Geneva Conventions, or any military procedure."
Hussein is one of an estimated 14,000 people detained by the U.S. military worldwide - 13,000 of them in Iraq. They are held in limbo where few are ever charged with a specific crime or given a chance before any court or tribunal to argue for their freedom.
In Hussein's case, the military has not provided any concrete evidence to back up the vague allegations they have raised about him, Curley and other AP executives said. ...
U.S. War Prisons Legal Vacuum for 14,000 ... caught up in U.S. military sweeps, often interrogated around the clock
U.S. War Prisons Legal Vacuum for 14,000 | Sep 17, 3:45 PM (ET) | By PATRICK QUINN (AP)
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - In the few short years since the first shackled Afghan shuffled off to Guantanamo, the U.S. military has created a global network of overseas prisons, its islands of high security keeping 14,000 detainees beyond the reach of established law.
Disclosures of torture and long-term arbitrary detentions have won rebuke from leading voices including the U.N. secretary-general and the U.S. Supreme Court. But the bitterest words come from inside the system, the size of several major U.S. penitentiaries.
"It was hard to believe I'd get out," Baghdad shopkeeper Amjad Qassim al-Aliyawi told The Associated Press after his release - without charge - last month. "I lived with the Americans for one year and eight months as if I was living in hell."
Captured on battlefields, pulled from beds at midnight, grabbed off streets as suspected insurgents, tens of thousands now have passed through U.S. detention, the vast majority in Iraq.
Many say they were caught up in U.S. military sweeps, often interrogated around the clock, then released months or years later without apology, compensation or any word on why they were taken. Seventy to 90 percent of the Iraq detentions in 2003 were "mistakes," U.S. officers once told the international Red Cross ...
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - In the few short years since the first shackled Afghan shuffled off to Guantanamo, the U.S. military has created a global network of overseas prisons, its islands of high security keeping 14,000 detainees beyond the reach of established law.
Disclosures of torture and long-term arbitrary detentions have won rebuke from leading voices including the U.N. secretary-general and the U.S. Supreme Court. But the bitterest words come from inside the system, the size of several major U.S. penitentiaries.
"It was hard to believe I'd get out," Baghdad shopkeeper Amjad Qassim al-Aliyawi told The Associated Press after his release - without charge - last month. "I lived with the Americans for one year and eight months as if I was living in hell."
Captured on battlefields, pulled from beds at midnight, grabbed off streets as suspected insurgents, tens of thousands now have passed through U.S. detention, the vast majority in Iraq.
Many say they were caught up in U.S. military sweeps, often interrogated around the clock, then released months or years later without apology, compensation or any word on why they were taken. Seventy to 90 percent of the Iraq detentions in 2003 were "mistakes," U.S. officers once told the international Red Cross ...
[UK attorney General] Goldsmith warns US on detainees ... not to water down the standards in Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions
Goldsmith warns US on detainees | By Joshua Rozenberg, Legal Editor | (Filed: 18/09/2006)
Terrorist suspects detained at Guantanamo Bay should not be subject to humiliating and degrading treatment, the Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, warned the US government at the weekend.
Speaking in Chicago, Lord Goldsmith told the Bush administration that it should not try to water down the standards in Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions.
This provision, he said, "prohibits outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment" of those detained in combat. It was "an international standard of very considerable importance and its content must be the same for all nations", he stressed.
In a speech that received a standing ovation from members of the American Bar Association and the International Bar Association, Lord Goldsmith acknowledged that he was interfering in a "live, and sensitive, domestic political debate".
But he said it was not purely domestic. "The detainees to whom these procedures apply are non-US citizens and are detained outside the US."
His remarks came after a speech this month by President George W Bush justifying the use of "tough" interrogation methods against a suspected terrorist leader. On Sept 6, the president disclosed that the CIA had used an "alternative set of procedures" to interrogate Abu Zubaydah, believed to have been a trusted associate of Osama bin Laden. He stressed that the US did not use torture.
The president also dismissed the requirement in Article 3 that there must be no outrages upon personal dignity as "very vague" and "wide open to interpretation". He called on Congress to support legislation that would provide "clarity" for US interrogators.
Lord Goldsmith's insistence that the standards of Article 3 must be the same for all nations is seen as a warning that the US should not dilute those standards by passing domestic legislation that permits humiliating and degrading treatment.
Terrorist suspects detained at Guantanamo Bay should not be subject to humiliating and degrading treatment, the Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, warned the US government at the weekend.
Speaking in Chicago, Lord Goldsmith told the Bush administration that it should not try to water down the standards in Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions.
This provision, he said, "prohibits outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment" of those detained in combat. It was "an international standard of very considerable importance and its content must be the same for all nations", he stressed.
In a speech that received a standing ovation from members of the American Bar Association and the International Bar Association, Lord Goldsmith acknowledged that he was interfering in a "live, and sensitive, domestic political debate".
But he said it was not purely domestic. "The detainees to whom these procedures apply are non-US citizens and are detained outside the US."
His remarks came after a speech this month by President George W Bush justifying the use of "tough" interrogation methods against a suspected terrorist leader. On Sept 6, the president disclosed that the CIA had used an "alternative set of procedures" to interrogate Abu Zubaydah, believed to have been a trusted associate of Osama bin Laden. He stressed that the US did not use torture.
The president also dismissed the requirement in Article 3 that there must be no outrages upon personal dignity as "very vague" and "wide open to interpretation". He called on Congress to support legislation that would provide "clarity" for US interrogators.
Lord Goldsmith's insistence that the standards of Article 3 must be the same for all nations is seen as a warning that the US should not dilute those standards by passing domestic legislation that permits humiliating and degrading treatment.
Olbermann: Bush's 'rush' to redefine Geneva Conventions may be mostly about 'covering his own backside'
Olbermann: Bush's 'rush' to redefine Geneva Conventions may be mostly about 'covering his own backside' | David Edwards | Published: Saturday September 16, 2006 | Raw story
Keith Olbermann's Friday broadcast on MSNBC featured a long look at the President's contentious Rose Garden press conference on Friday, dubbing it the "Roast Garden," and then pondered whether Bush's urgency to redefine the Geneva Convention had more to do with "covering his own backside" than anything else.
At a Friday press conference, an animated President Bush tells reporters that the U.S. program to interrogate terrorist suspects will not continue unless Congress creates new legal definitions for Common Article 3 or the Geneva Conventions -- a move that has alarmed some GOP senators and former Secretary of State Colin Powell.
...
Afterward, Georgetown University Constitutional Law Professor Jonathan Turley joined Keith Olbermann for a discussion on why the president was in such a hurry to get the legislation passed "his way."
Turley agreed with Olbermann that Bush's primary motive might be in "covering his own backside."
Turley noted that the 14 high level detainees recently transferred to Guantanamo Bay are due to be interviewed by the Red Cross, and that "most people believe that they will reveal that they were subject to water boarding - held under water until you think that you are going to drown - that is undeniably torture under the international standard."
"I think that the Administration senses that there is a lot of trouble coming down the mountain," said Turley. ...
Keith Olbermann's Friday broadcast on MSNBC featured a long look at the President's contentious Rose Garden press conference on Friday, dubbing it the "Roast Garden," and then pondered whether Bush's urgency to redefine the Geneva Convention had more to do with "covering his own backside" than anything else.
At a Friday press conference, an animated President Bush tells reporters that the U.S. program to interrogate terrorist suspects will not continue unless Congress creates new legal definitions for Common Article 3 or the Geneva Conventions -- a move that has alarmed some GOP senators and former Secretary of State Colin Powell.
...
Afterward, Georgetown University Constitutional Law Professor Jonathan Turley joined Keith Olbermann for a discussion on why the president was in such a hurry to get the legislation passed "his way."
Turley agreed with Olbermann that Bush's primary motive might be in "covering his own backside."
Turley noted that the 14 high level detainees recently transferred to Guantanamo Bay are due to be interviewed by the Red Cross, and that "most people believe that they will reveal that they were subject to water boarding - held under water until you think that you are going to drown - that is undeniably torture under the international standard."
"I think that the Administration senses that there is a lot of trouble coming down the mountain," said Turley. ...
A Defining Moment for America ... The president goes to Capitol Hill to lobby for torture
A Defining Moment for America | The president goes to Capitol Hill to lobby for torture | Washington Post Editorial | Washington Post | September 15, 2006
PRESIDENT BUSH rarely visits Congress. So it was a measure of his painfully skewed priorities that Mr. Bush made the unaccustomed trip yesterday to seek legislative permission for the CIA to make people disappear into secret prisons and have information extracted from them by means he dare not describe publicly.
Of course, Mr. Bush didn't come out and say he's lobbying for torture. Instead he refers to "an alternative set of procedures" for interrogation. But the administration no longer conceals what it wants. It wants authorization for the CIA to hide detainees in overseas prisons where even the International Committee of the Red Cross won't have access. It wants permission to interrogate those detainees with abusive practices that in the past have included induced hypothermia and "waterboarding," or simulated drowning. And it wants the right to try such detainees, and perhaps sentence them to death, on the basis of evidence that the defendants cannot see and that may have been extracted during those abusive interrogation sessions.
...
... A president who lobbies for torture feeds those doubts even if, as we hope, Congress denies him his request.
PRESIDENT BUSH rarely visits Congress. So it was a measure of his painfully skewed priorities that Mr. Bush made the unaccustomed trip yesterday to seek legislative permission for the CIA to make people disappear into secret prisons and have information extracted from them by means he dare not describe publicly.
Of course, Mr. Bush didn't come out and say he's lobbying for torture. Instead he refers to "an alternative set of procedures" for interrogation. But the administration no longer conceals what it wants. It wants authorization for the CIA to hide detainees in overseas prisons where even the International Committee of the Red Cross won't have access. It wants permission to interrogate those detainees with abusive practices that in the past have included induced hypothermia and "waterboarding," or simulated drowning. And it wants the right to try such detainees, and perhaps sentence them to death, on the basis of evidence that the defendants cannot see and that may have been extracted during those abusive interrogation sessions.
...
... A president who lobbies for torture feeds those doubts even if, as we hope, Congress denies him his request.
Friday, September 01, 2006
The Constitution: Checking a Would-Be King - by Ray McGovern
The Constitution: Checking a Would-Be King - by Ray McGovern: "August 19, 2006 | by Ray McGovern
Who can forget the chutzpah of President George W. Bush as he bragged to Bob Woodward, 'I'm commander in chief.... That's the interesting thing about being president ... I don't feel like I owe anybody an explanation.'
Wrong, Mr. President. You and Vice President Cheney seem to have missed 'Constitution 101.'" ...
...
Mr. President, you can't just keep making things up – things like "unitary executive," and "unlawful combatant," and "military tribunals" and "enhanced interrogation techniques." You cannot make-believe them into law. These quasi-legal constructs are bound to come back to roost. The US Constitution is not just another piece of paper. Indeed, it seems to be getting a new lease on life these days. Now you and your lawyers have run into a tough judge who takes the Constitution very seriously indeed and shows no sign of bending with the prevailing winds. ...
Who can forget the chutzpah of President George W. Bush as he bragged to Bob Woodward, 'I'm commander in chief.... That's the interesting thing about being president ... I don't feel like I owe anybody an explanation.'
Wrong, Mr. President. You and Vice President Cheney seem to have missed 'Constitution 101.'" ...
...
Mr. President, you can't just keep making things up – things like "unitary executive," and "unlawful combatant," and "military tribunals" and "enhanced interrogation techniques." You cannot make-believe them into law. These quasi-legal constructs are bound to come back to roost. The US Constitution is not just another piece of paper. Indeed, it seems to be getting a new lease on life these days. Now you and your lawyers have run into a tough judge who takes the Constitution very seriously indeed and shows no sign of bending with the prevailing winds. ...
Tuesday, August 29, 2006
Mr. Bush violated the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act when he ordered the National Security Agency to spy without a warrant
Ruling for the Law - New York Times: "Published: August 18, 2006
Ever since President Bush was forced to admit that he was spying on Americans’ telephone calls and e-mail without warrants, his lawyers have fought to keep challenges to the program out of the courts. Yesterday, that plan failed. A federal judge in Detroit declared the eavesdropping program to be illegal and unconstitutional. She also offered a scathing condemnation of what lies behind the wiretapping — Mr. Bush’s attempt to expand his powers to the point that he can place himself beyond the reach of Congress, judges or the Constitution.
“There are no hereditary kings in America and no powers not created by the Constitution,” wrote Judge Anna Diggs Taylor of the United States District Court in Detroit. Her decision was based on a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union.
She said Mr. Bush violated the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act when he ordered the National Security Agency to spy without a warrant on international phone calls and e-mail by Americans and foreign residents of the United States. She noted that the surveillance law was passed to prohibit just this sort of presidential abuse of power and provided ample flexibility for gathering vital intelligence. She also said that the program violated the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures, as well as the rights of free speech and association granted by the First Amendment.
The ruling eviscerated the absurd notion on which the administration’s arguments have been based: that Congress authorized Mr. Bush to do whatever he thinks is necessary when it authorized the invasion of Afghanistan.
It’s good news that this ruling exists at all. ...Thursday, August 17, 2006
Federal Judge Orders Halt to NSA Wiretapping: effort ordered by President Bush was unconstitutional.
Federal Judge Orders Halt to NSA Wiretapping: "By Dan Eggen | Washington Post Staff Writer | Thursday, August 17, 2006; 6:50 PM
A federal judge in Detroit ordered a halt to the National Security Agency's warrantless surveillance program, ruling for the first time that the controversial effort ordered by President Bush was unconstitutional.
U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor wrote in a strongly-worded 43-page opinion that the NSA wiretapping program violates privacy and free-speech rights and the constitutional separation of powers between the three branches of government. She also found that it violates a 1978 law set up to oversee clandestine surveillance."
The Justice Department said that it was appealing the decision and that the parties to the lawsuit had agreed to delay the judge's order until the appeal could be heard.
...
"It was never the intent of the framers to give the president such unfettered control, particularly where his actions blatantly disregard the parameters clearly enumerated in the Bill of Rights," she wrote. " . . . There are no hereditary Kings in America and no powers not created by the Constitution. So all 'inherent powers' must derive from that Constitution." ...
A federal judge in Detroit ordered a halt to the National Security Agency's warrantless surveillance program, ruling for the first time that the controversial effort ordered by President Bush was unconstitutional.
U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor wrote in a strongly-worded 43-page opinion that the NSA wiretapping program violates privacy and free-speech rights and the constitutional separation of powers between the three branches of government. She also found that it violates a 1978 law set up to oversee clandestine surveillance."
The Justice Department said that it was appealing the decision and that the parties to the lawsuit had agreed to delay the judge's order until the appeal could be heard.
...
"It was never the intent of the framers to give the president such unfettered control, particularly where his actions blatantly disregard the parameters clearly enumerated in the Bill of Rights," she wrote. " . . . There are no hereditary Kings in America and no powers not created by the Constitution. So all 'inherent powers' must derive from that Constitution." ...
Monday, August 07, 2006
Declassified papers show U.S. atrocities went far beyond My Lai - 320 alleged incidents [during Vietnam]
Civilian Killings Went Unpunished - Los Angeles Times: "Civilian Killings Went Unpunished | Declassified papers show U.S. atrocities went far beyond My Lai. | By Nick Turse and Deborah Nelson, Special to The Times | August 6, 2006
...
Moments later, the 19 villagers lay dead or dying.
Back home in California, Henry published an account of the slaughter and held a news conference to air his allegations. Yet he and other Vietnam veterans who spoke out about war crimes were branded traitors and fabricators. No one was ever prosecuted for the massacre.
Now, nearly 40 years later, declassified Army files show that Henry was telling the truth — about the Feb. 8 killings and a series of other atrocities by the men of B Company.
The files are part of a once-secret archive, assembled by a Pentagon task force in the early 1970s, that shows that confirmed atrocities by U.S. forces in Vietnam were more extensive than was previously known.
The documents detail 320 alleged incidents that were substantiated by Army investigators — not including the most notorious U.S. atrocity, the 1968 My Lai massacre.
...
mong the substantiated cases in the archive:
• Seven massacres from 1967 through 1971 in which at least 137 civilians died.
• Seventy-eight other attacks on noncombatants in which at least 57 were killed, 56 wounded and 15 sexually assaulted.
• One hundred forty-one instances in which U.S. soldiers tortured civilian detainees or prisoners of war with fists, sticks, bats, water or electric shock.
Investigators determined that evidence against 203 soldiers accused of harming Vietnamese civilians or prisoners was strong enough to warrant formal charges. These "founded" cases were referred to the soldiers' superiors for action.
Ultimately, 57 of them were court-martialed and just 23 convicted, the records show.
Fourteen received prison sentences ranging from six months to 20 years, but most won significant reductions on appeal. The stiffest sentence went to a military intelligence interrogator convicted of committing indecent acts on a 13-year-old girl in an interrogation hut in 1967.
He served seven months of a 20-year term, the records show.
Many substantiated cases were closed with a letter of reprimand, a fine or, in more than half the cases, no action at all. ...
...
Moments later, the 19 villagers lay dead or dying.
Back home in California, Henry published an account of the slaughter and held a news conference to air his allegations. Yet he and other Vietnam veterans who spoke out about war crimes were branded traitors and fabricators. No one was ever prosecuted for the massacre.
Now, nearly 40 years later, declassified Army files show that Henry was telling the truth — about the Feb. 8 killings and a series of other atrocities by the men of B Company.
The files are part of a once-secret archive, assembled by a Pentagon task force in the early 1970s, that shows that confirmed atrocities by U.S. forces in Vietnam were more extensive than was previously known.
The documents detail 320 alleged incidents that were substantiated by Army investigators — not including the most notorious U.S. atrocity, the 1968 My Lai massacre.
...
mong the substantiated cases in the archive:
• Seven massacres from 1967 through 1971 in which at least 137 civilians died.
• Seventy-eight other attacks on noncombatants in which at least 57 were killed, 56 wounded and 15 sexually assaulted.
• One hundred forty-one instances in which U.S. soldiers tortured civilian detainees or prisoners of war with fists, sticks, bats, water or electric shock.
Investigators determined that evidence against 203 soldiers accused of harming Vietnamese civilians or prisoners was strong enough to warrant formal charges. These "founded" cases were referred to the soldiers' superiors for action.
Ultimately, 57 of them were court-martialed and just 23 convicted, the records show.
Fourteen received prison sentences ranging from six months to 20 years, but most won significant reductions on appeal. The stiffest sentence went to a military intelligence interrogator convicted of committing indecent acts on a 13-year-old girl in an interrogation hut in 1967.
He served seven months of a 20-year term, the records show.
Many substantiated cases were closed with a letter of reprimand, a fine or, in more than half the cases, no action at all. ...
Sunday, July 30, 2006
Student protests turned up in Pentagon database ...on threats from international terrorists.
dailypennsylvanian.com - Student protests turned up in Pentagon database: "By nathan johnson | July 27, 2006
When a group of students at the University of California at Berkeley convened to protest on-campus military recruitment last year, they hoped their effort would get some attention.
But they didn't expect that attention would wind up in a terror-threat database.
The day before the protest, on April 20, 2005, an agent of the Department of Homeland Security filed a report on the planned demonstration.
Among the items included: an e-mail sent by an organizer, along with the student's e-mail address and phone number.
The agent's report was included in a Pentagon-managed database intended to compile information on threats from international terrorists." ...
When a group of students at the University of California at Berkeley convened to protest on-campus military recruitment last year, they hoped their effort would get some attention.
But they didn't expect that attention would wind up in a terror-threat database.
The day before the protest, on April 20, 2005, an agent of the Department of Homeland Security filed a report on the planned demonstration.
Among the items included: an e-mail sent by an organizer, along with the student's e-mail address and phone number.
The agent's report was included in a Pentagon-managed database intended to compile information on threats from international terrorists." ...
Friday, July 28, 2006
officials and troops involved in handling detainee matters might be accused of committing war crimes
Detainee Abuse Charges Feared: "Shield Sought From '96 War Crimes Act | By R. Jeffrey Smith | Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, July 28, 2006; A01
An obscure law approved by a Republican-controlled Congress a decade ago has made the Bush administration nervous that officials and troops involved in handling detainee matters might be accused of committing war crimes, and prosecuted at some point in U.S. courts.
Senior officials have responded by drafting legislation that would grant U.S. personnel involved in the terrorism fight new protections against prosecution for past violations of the War Crimes Act of 1996. That law criminalizes violations of the Geneva Conventions governing conduct in war and threatens the death penalty if U.S.-held detainees die in custody from abusive treatment.
In light of a recent Supreme Court ruling that the international Conventions apply to the treatment of detainees in the terrorism fight, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales has spoken privately with Republican lawmakers about the need for such 'protections,' according to someone who heard his remarks last week." ...
Friday, July 28, 2006; A01
An obscure law approved by a Republican-controlled Congress a decade ago has made the Bush administration nervous that officials and troops involved in handling detainee matters might be accused of committing war crimes, and prosecuted at some point in U.S. courts.
Senior officials have responded by drafting legislation that would grant U.S. personnel involved in the terrorism fight new protections against prosecution for past violations of the War Crimes Act of 1996. That law criminalizes violations of the Geneva Conventions governing conduct in war and threatens the death penalty if U.S.-held detainees die in custody from abusive treatment.
In light of a recent Supreme Court ruling that the international Conventions apply to the treatment of detainees in the terrorism fight, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales has spoken privately with Republican lawmakers about the need for such 'protections,' according to someone who heard his remarks last week." ...
U.N. rights body tells US to shut 'secret' jails ... [obey] International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
Excite News: "U.N. rights body tells US to shut 'secret' jails | Jul 28, 6:07 AM (ET)
GENEVA (Reuters) - The U.N. Human Rights Committee on Friday told Washington it should immediately shut all 'secret detention' facilities and give the International Committee of the Red Cross access to anybody held in armed conflict.
In findings on U.S. observance of the U.N.'s main political rights' convention, the committee said it had 'credible and uncontested' information that the United States had detained people 'secretly and in secret places for months and years.'
'The state party should immediately abolish all secret detention and secret detention facilities,' it said, echoing a similar demand in May by the United Nations' Committee on Torture.
The committee said it could not accept Washington's argument that the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which the United States has signed, does not apply to anyone held outside U.S. territory." ...
GENEVA (Reuters) - The U.N. Human Rights Committee on Friday told Washington it should immediately shut all 'secret detention' facilities and give the International Committee of the Red Cross access to anybody held in armed conflict.
In findings on U.S. observance of the U.N.'s main political rights' convention, the committee said it had 'credible and uncontested' information that the United States had detained people 'secretly and in secret places for months and years.'
'The state party should immediately abolish all secret detention and secret detention facilities,' it said, echoing a similar demand in May by the United Nations' Committee on Torture.
The committee said it could not accept Washington's argument that the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which the United States has signed, does not apply to anyone held outside U.S. territory." ...
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
Bush is flouting Constitution, bar says ... contrary to the rule of law and our constitutional system of separation of powers.'
Bush is flouting Constitution, bar says: "Monday, July 24, 2006 | By ROBERT PEAR | THE NEW YORK TIMES
President often refuses to enforce parts of new laws
WASHINGTON -- The American Bar Association said Sunday that President Bush was flouting the Constitution and undermining the rule of law by claiming the power to disregard selected provisions of bills that he signed.
In a report, a bipartisan 11-member panel of the bar association said Bush had used so-called 'signing statements' far more than his predecessors, raising constitutional objections to more than 800 provisions in more than 100 laws on the ground that they infringed on his prerogatives.
In the report, members said those broad assertions of presidential power amount to a 'line-item veto' and improperly deprive Congress of the opportunity to override the veto.
For example, in signing a statutory ban on torture and other national security laws approved by Congress, Bush reserved the right to disregard them.
The bar association panel said the use of signing statements in that way was 'contrary to the rule of law and our constitutional system of separation of powers.' From the dawn of the Republic, it said, presidents have generally understood that, in the words of George Washington, a president 'must approve all the parts of a bill, or reject it in toto.'" ...
President often refuses to enforce parts of new laws
WASHINGTON -- The American Bar Association said Sunday that President Bush was flouting the Constitution and undermining the rule of law by claiming the power to disregard selected provisions of bills that he signed.
In a report, a bipartisan 11-member panel of the bar association said Bush had used so-called 'signing statements' far more than his predecessors, raising constitutional objections to more than 800 provisions in more than 100 laws on the ground that they infringed on his prerogatives.
In the report, members said those broad assertions of presidential power amount to a 'line-item veto' and improperly deprive Congress of the opportunity to override the veto.
For example, in signing a statutory ban on torture and other national security laws approved by Congress, Bush reserved the right to disregard them.
The bar association panel said the use of signing statements in that way was 'contrary to the rule of law and our constitutional system of separation of powers.' From the dawn of the Republic, it said, presidents have generally understood that, in the words of George Washington, a president 'must approve all the parts of a bill, or reject it in toto.'" ...
Sunday, July 23, 2006
President Bush's electronic surveillance program has been a festering sore on our body politic
Surveillance We Can Live With: "By Arlen Specter | Monday, July 24, 2006; Page A19
President Bush's electronic surveillance program has been a festering sore on our body politic since it was publicly disclosed last December. Civil libertarians, myself included, have insisted that the program must be subject to judicial review to ensure compliance with the Fourth Amendment." ... ...
President Bush's electronic surveillance program has been a festering sore on our body politic since it was publicly disclosed last December. Civil libertarians, myself included, have insisted that the program must be subject to judicial review to ensure compliance with the Fourth Amendment." ... ...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)