The legality of execution by executive decree without due process

glenn...

The ACLU and the Center for Constitutional Rights this morning filed a lawsuit in federal court against several Obama officials, including Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and CIA Director David Petraeus. The suit is brought on behalf of the survivors of three American citizens killed in Yemen by the U.S. Government — killed specifically by the CIA and the Pentagon’s Joint Special Operations Command — with no due process and far from any battlefield: Anwar Awlaki and Samir Khan (killed together in a drone strike) and Awlaki’s teenaged son Abdulrahman (killed two weeks later).

The suit alleges that the killing of these Americans violates their Constitutional rights (including their Fifth Amendment right to due process) because “the United States was not engaged in an armed conflict with or within Yemen” and “these killings rely on vague legal standards, a closed executive process, and evidence never presented to the courts.”

by all means, go read the rest...

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CISPA heads for a vote in the House

sopa, acta, pipa and now cispa... our rulers keep bringing this shit back in different guises, thinking that eventually we'll grow tired of fighting and let them have their way... it's a timely reminder that our super-rich elites will stop at nothing to control the internet and to make sure that absolutely nothing we do, whether it's on the internet or anywhere else, no matter how small or innocent, escapes the notice of the ptb... 

from democracy now...

As it heads toward a House vote, critics say the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) would allow private internet companies like Google, Facebook and Microsoft to hand over troves of confidential customer records and communications to the National Security Agency, FBI and Department of Homeland Security, effectively legalizing a secret domestic surveillance program already run by the NSA. Backers say the measure is needed to help private firms crackdown on foreign entities — including the Chinese and Russian governments — committing online economic espionage. The bill has faced widespread opposition from online privacy advocates and even the Obama administration, which has threatened a veto. "CISPA … will create an exception to all existing privacy laws so that companies can share very sensitive and personal information directly with the government, including military agencies like the National Security Agency," says Michelle Richardson, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union. "Once the government has it, they can repurpose it and use it for a number of things, including an undefined national security use."

still more from democracy now...

Computer security researcher Jacob Appelbaum argues the measures included in the proposed Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) would essentially legalize military surveillance of U.S. citizens. "When they want to dramatically expand their ability to do these things in a so-called legal manner, it’s important to note what they’re trying to do is to legalize what they have already been doing," Appelbaum says. He is a developer and advocate for the Tor Project, a network enabling its users to communicate anonymously on the internet, and has volunteered with WikiLeaks.

as much as i hate to repeat myself, i've been saying for years that you can be sure that anything and everything you do on an electronic network of whatever variety, whether it's using an atm or swiping your supermarket affinity card or making a phone call or even driving your car down the road in range of surveillance cameras, is being at minimum sniffed and most likely recorded for possible later retrieval... and when i say years, i mean at least since the early to mid 90s... 

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Glenn: The attempt to make targeted killing of American citizens seem normal should insult anyone with the most basic understanding of American law

first the aclu in response to attorney general holder's explanation yesterday for why the obama administration believes it has the authority to secretly target u.s. citizens for execution by the cia without even charging them with a crime, notifying them of the accusations, or affording them an opportunity to respond...

Few things are as dangerous to American liberty as the proposition that the government should be able to kill citizens anywhere in the world on the basis of legal standards and evidence that are never submitted to a court, either before or after the fact.

Anyone willing to trust President Obama with the power to secretly declare an American citizen an enemy of the state and order his extrajudicial killing should ask whether they would be willing to trust the next president with that dangerous power.

glenn's summation...

Holder’s attempt to make this all seem normal and common should insult anyone with the most basic understanding of American law. As The New York Times put it when first confirming the assassination program in April, 2010: ” The Obama administration has taken the extraordinary step of authorizing the targeted killing of an American citizen. . . . It is extremely rare, if not unprecedented, for an American to be approved for targeted killing, officials said. A former senior legal official in the administration of George W. Bush said he did not know of any American who was approved for targeted killing under the former president.” To date, not a single such citizen has been identified.

As always, the most important point to note for this entire debate is how perverse and warped it is that we’re even having this “debate” at all. It should be self-negating — self-marginalizing — to assert that the President, acting with no checks or transparency, can order American citizens executed far from any battlefield and without any opportunity even to know about, let alone rebut, the accusations. That this policy is being implemented and defended by the very same political party that spent the last decade so vocally and opportunistically objecting to far less extreme powers makes it all the more repellent. That fact also makes it all the more dangerous, because — as one can see — the fact that it is a Democratic President doing it, and Democratic Party officials justifying it, means that it’s much easier to normalize: very few of the Party’s followers, especially in an election year, are willing to make much of a fuss about it at all.

And thus will presidential assassination powers be entrenched as bipartisan consensus for at least a generation. That will undoubtedly be one of the most significant aspects of the Obama legacy. Let no Democrat who is now supportive or even silent be heard to object when the next Republican President exercises this power in ways that they dislike.

a stunning disregard for due process, the rule of law and the united states constitution...

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The U.S. Government’s conduct of most affairs behind a wall of secrecy is ... cynical, manipulative and self-protective

glenn delivers an insightful analysis of the aclu lawsuit against various agencies of the obama administration — the justice and defense departments and the cia — over their refusal to disclose any information about the assassination of american citizens...

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Celebrating the extrajudicial assassination of an American citizen

what's wrong with my country...?

Obama Hails Awlaki Killing

President Obama called the killing of Anwar al Awlaki “another significant milestone in the broader effort to defeat al Qaeda.” The killing of the American-born cleric by CIA drones this morning deals a “major blow” to al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, said Obama at the retirement ceremony for Navy Adm. Mike Mullen. Republicans praised the president and the killing of Awlaki, with Texas Gov. Rick Perry calling it “an important victory.” The American Civil Liberties Union, meanwhile, condemned the killing as an illegal assassination of a U.S. citizen.

there's no doubt in my mind that if i started showing support for what al qaeda and other groups advocate in their forms of islamic terrorist extremism, i could just as easily become a target for death-by-drone as al awlaki, no matter that i'm an american citizen... i also have no doubt that if i began spouting rhetoric that called for the execution of all doctors who offered abortions, while i might subject myself to an indictment for hate speech and advocacy of violence, i would not be hunted down and killed by my own government without any benefit of due process...

how is it possible that we've run so far off the rails...?

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Everybody's a suspect...

truthout...

The recent dramatic expansion of intelligence collection at the federal, state and local level raises profound civil liberties concerns regarding freedoms and protections we have long taken for granted. If people generally appear unaware of "change in the air," a large part of the reason is the unparalleled resort to secrecy used by the government to keep its actions from public scrutiny. According to the new American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) report, "Drastic Measures Required," under President Obama (who had vowed to create "an unprecedented level of openness in Government" when he first took office), there were no fewer than 76,795,945 decisions made to classify information in 2010 - eight times the number made in 2001.

There are layers of secrecy that cannot even be penetrated by most members of Congress. In the recent debate over the re-authorization of three sections of the USA Patriot Act with sunset provisions, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon), who is a member of the Joint Intelligence Committee, declared in the Senate in May 2011 that there was a secret interpretation of Patriot Act powers that he could not even tell them about without disclosing classified information. [2] "When the American people find out how their government has secretly interpreted the Patriot Act, they will be stunned and they will be angry," said Wyden. The determination of the Obama administration to imitate its predecessor and maintain a wall of secrecy around anything that could be connected (however tenuously) with "national security" is evident in the zeal with which it has pursued whistleblowers and its use of the state secrets privilege in judicial proceedings, including in the recent court challenge to the FBI use of the informant Craig Monteilh to spy on mosques in Orange County, California.

During a decade of relentless fearmongering about the terrorist threat, most Americans appear to have accommodated themselves to the visible signs of change without questioning their broad implications. If searches on the subway, body scans at the airport and a Special Operations military drill targeting a Boston neighborhood are presented as necessary to keep the nation safe, they are for them.

But what would they make of the largely invisible architecture of surveillance that treats everyone as a potential suspect? Anyone who has a bank account and makes a financial transaction, or uses a phone or a computer to send emails or browse web sites, or visits a library, books a rental car, or purchases a airline ticket is within the surveillance net.

i've said repeatedly, anyone who uses any digital network, from an atm to swiping a supermarket affinity card, is opening themselves to surveillance...

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The ACLU commemorates 9/11 and our new, improved National Security State

from "A Call to Courage: Reclaiming Our Liberties Ten Years After 9/11"...

Ten years ago, we could not have imagined our country would engage in systematic policies of torture and targeted killing, extraordinary rendition and warrantless wiretaps, military commissions and indefinite detention, political surveillance and religious discrimination. Not only were these policies completely at odds with our values, but by engaging in them, we strained relations with our allies, handed a propaganda tool to our enemies, undermined the trust of communities whose cooperation is essential in the fight against terrorism, and diverted scarce law enforcement resources. Some of these policies have been stopped. Torture and extraordinary rendition are no longer officially condoned. But most other policies—indefinite detention, targeted killing, trial by military commissions, warrantless surveillance, and racial profiling—remain core elements of our national security strategy today.

glenn...

[S]o entrenched is this institutional militarism, secrecy, surveillance and authoritarianism that even if there were greater public debate over it like there was during the Bush presidency, this system would hardly be affected, let alone threatened. Governments and other power factions -- especially ones threatened by the prospect of social unrest and upheaval -- do not relinquish this sort of authority unless compelled to do so.

and thus we have the REAL commemoration of 9/11...

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Wikileaks under Obama, Professor Cole under Bush - continuing to gut the 1st and 4th Amendments

i had often wondered if professor cole hadn't attracted the interest of our propaganda and domestic surveillance-meisters... guess so...

from juan cole's weblog...

Eminent National Security correspondent at the New York Times James Risen has been told by a retired former official of the Central Intelligence Agency that the Bush White House repeatedly asked the CIA to spy on me with a view to discovering “damaging” information with which to discredit my reputation. Glenn Carle says he was called into the office of his superior, David Low, in 2005 and was asked of me, “ ‘What do you think we might know about him, or could find out that could discredit him?’ ”

Low actually wrote up a brief attempt in this direction and submitted it to the White House but Carle says he intercepted it. Carle later discovered that yet another young analyst had been tasked with looking into me.

It seems to me clear that the Bush White House was upset by my blogging of the Iraq War, in which I was using Arabic and other primary sources, and which contradicted the propaganda efforts of the administration attempting to make the enterprise look like a wild shining success.

Carle’s revelations come as a visceral shock. You had thought that with all the shennanigans of the CIA against anti-Vietnam war protesters and then Nixon’s use of the agency against critics like Daniel Ellsberg, that the Company and successive White Houses would have learned that the agency had no business spying on American citizens.

I believe Carle’s insider account and discount the glib denials of people like Low. Carle is taking a substantial risk in making all this public. I hope that the Senate and House Intelligence Committees will immediately launch an investigation of this clear violation of the law by the Bush White House and by the CIA officials concerned. Like Mr. Carle, I am dismayed at how easy it seems to have been for corrupt WH officials to suborn CIA personnel into activities that had nothing to do with national security abroad and everything to do with silencing domestic critics. This effort was yet another attempt to gut the Fourth Amendment of the US Constitution, in this case as part of an effort to gut the First Amendment of the US Constitution.

without meaning to discount professor cole, i am nonetheless somewhat amused at his shock and outrage at being targeted... given his clear level of expertise in the middle east, his ability to clearly and reasonably articulate his views, AND his visibility, i would have expected him to be a target... after all, he does everything but wear a neon sign saying, "here i am, i dare you to try to shut me up," which, in this day and age, is like waving a red flag in front of a bull... our fearless leaders, backed by our super-rich elites, don't want anybody out there upsetting their apple cart and certainly not doing so by telling the truth...

flash forward to yesterday...

from firedoglake...

A federal grand jury empaneled to investigate WikiLeaks meets again in Alexandria, Virginia today. David House, co-founder of the Bradley Manning Support Network, is expected to appear before the grand jury. He and others in the Greater Boston area have been subjected to this process, which seeks to embroil them in espionage charges for being linked to WikiLeaks.

It is a tired cliché, perhaps, but, with each new development in the investigation of WikiLeaks—in a process that might be considered a part of a larger war on WikiLeaks—more and more individuals are being made to answer the question, “Do you or have you ever worked for WikiLeaks?” (Soon they will be asked, “Are you or have you ever been supportive or sympathetic toward WikiLeaks?”)

House has been targeted consistently by the government for the past months. His lawful association with the Bradley Manning Support Network, which was created to raise funds for the legal defense of Pfc. Bradley Manning, the alleged whistleblower to WikiLeaks now being held at Ft. Leavenworth, has transformed him into a marked man. In November 2010, Department of Homeland Security agents stopped House at O’Hare International airport as he was returning from Mexico.

The agents asked House about his political activities and beliefs. His laptop computer, camera, and a USB drive were all seized. The questioning and seizure of personal property does not appear to have been carried out because House posed a threat to border security. But, House was made to face intrusive and intimidating tactics because he joined a lawful group.

“The search and seizure of my laptop has had a chilling effect on the activities of the Bradley Manning Support Network, by silencing once-outspoken supporters and causing donors to retreat. Our government should not be treating lawful activists like suspects,” explains House.

The ACLU has come to his defense and filed a lawsuit against the DHS. The ACLU has called for the “return or destruction of any of House’s personal data still in the custody of the government and disclosure of whether and to whom the data has been disseminated.” And, if not for the ACLU sending a letter to DHS, House would likely have not been able to get his seized laptop, camera and USB drive back after seven weeks.

Targeting of House is not an anomaly. This practice of searching, copying and detaining travelers’ laptops, cell phones, and other electronic devices in airports or at land crossings has been used on a number of people when DHS knows there is no probable cause to support such harassment.

again, i have to confess a degree of amusement... it was the first of june 2006 that i had my laptop, external hard drive, digital camera, memory cards, flash drive, cd's and dvd's seized at customs in the san francisco airport and kept for three weeks before being returned... i have no doubt that my computer hard drive was copied in full and fully suspect that tracking codes were inserted in my computer to enable remote monitoring... it was then that the full realization of what kind of a police state we were living in finally hit home... sure, i had suspected all along but, like professor cole and david house, the reality of the shredding of our 4th amendment rights is never so real as when it affects you personally...

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Accountability...? What's that...? An emptywheel rant...

this is a follow-on to the previous post and this one...

marcy is righteously indignant over the unbelievable cover-up of our country's worst excesses and the apparent lack of any accountability whatsoever...

Of course no one will be charged for destroying the evidence of torture! Our country has spun so far beyond holding the criminals who run our country accountable that even the notion of accountability for torture was becoming quaint and musty while we waited and screamed for some kind of acknowledgment that Durham had let the statute of limitations on the torture tape destruction expire.

[...]

I think it’s clear. We cannot say we live under the rule of law.

lord help me, i am SO-O-O-O-O-OOO sick of posting about a lack of accountability...

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Sometimes, reading the news is just a flat-out bummer

'specially when all it does is show that there's absolutely no accountability ANYWHERE for ANYTHING that matters... now, if somebody falls a month or two behind in house payments, well, gee, that's an ENTIRELY different story...

No Charges Over Destruction of Interrogation Tapes, Justice Dept. Says

A federal prosecutor will not bring criminal charges against any of the Central Intelligence Agency officers involved in destroying videotapes depicting the brutal interrogation of Al Qaeda detainees, Justice Department officials said on Tuesday.

After an investigation spanning nearly three years, John H. Durham, the special prosecutor assigned to the case, has decided to clear the C.I.A. undercover officers and top lawyers at the agency for their roles in the destruction of the tapes.

Jose A. Rodriguez, the former head of the agency’s clandestine service, ordered his staff in 2005 to destroy tapes of the interrogations of Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri. The tapes had been kept in a safe in the agency’s station in Thailand, where the interrogations were conducted in 2002.

Mr. Rodriguez took responsibility for the destruction of the tapes, according to current and former government officials, and said that C.I.A. lawyers had authorized his order. The agency withheld the fact that the tapes had been destroyed from Congressional oversight committees, federal courts and the Sept. 11 Commission, which had asked the agency for records of the interrogations.

The announcement that there will be no charges in the destruction of the tapes leaves unanswered whether Mr. Durham will bring other charges related to the death or mistreatment of detainees in the hands of the agency, or to any false statements made by officials to investigators about harsh interrogations. The anti-torture act has an eight-year statute of limitations, and there is no time limit for murder charges.

Documents released earlier this year in response to a Freedom of Information Act request by the American Civil Liberties Union showed that the C.I.A. destroyed the tapes on the morning of Nov. 9, 2005. The five-year statute of limitations for filing charges of obstruction of justice related to their destruction expired on Tuesday.

Robert S. Bennett, Mr. Rodriguez’s attorney, said in an interview that he was pleased that the Justice Department “did the right thing.”

Mr. Rodriguez is “a hero and a patriot, who simply wanted to protect his people and his country,” Mr. Bennett said.

In August 2008, when Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. expanded Mr. Durham’s mandate to include looking into whether crimes were committed in the interrogation program, he also stressed that the Justice Department would “not prosecute anyone who acted in good faith and within the scope of the legal guidance given by the Office of Legal Counsel regarding the interrogation of detainees.”

"a hero and a patriot...?" fuck me...

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A headline to make you weep

that such a headline could ever be written about the united states is a true abomination...

a joint statement from the aclu and the center for constitutional rights...

Obama Administration Claims Unchecked Authority to Kill Americans Outside Combat Zones

The Obama administration today argued before a federal court that it should have unreviewable authority to kill Americans the executive branch has unilaterally determined to pose a threat. Government lawyers made that claim in response to a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) charging that the administration's asserted targeted killing authority violates the Constitution and international law. The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia heard arguments from both sides today.

"Not only does the administration claim to have sweeping power to target and kill U.S. citizens anywhere in the world, but it makes the extraordinary claim that the court has no role in reviewing that power or the legal standards that apply," said CCR Staff Attorney Pardiss Kebriaei, who presented arguments in the case. "The Supreme Court has repeatedly rejected the government's claim to an unchecked system of global detention, and the district court should similarly reject the administration's claim here to an unchecked system of global targeted killing."

[...]

"If the Constitution means anything, it surely means that the president does not have unreviewable authority to summarily execute any American whom he concludes is an enemy of the state," said Jameel Jaffer, Deputy Legal Director of the ACLU, who presented arguments in the case. "It's the government's responsibility to protect the nation from terrorist attacks, but the courts have a crucial role to play in ensuring that counterterrorism policies are consistent with the Constitution."

The government filed a brief in the case in September, claiming that the executive's targeted killing authority is a "political question" that should not be subject to judicial review. The government also asserted the "state secrets" privilege, contending that the case should be dismissed to avoid the disclosure of sensitive information.

i cry for my country...

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Targeted killing

there's a lot of very disturbing stuff going on out there but i think targeted killing and extrajudicial assassinations are right at the top of the list...

This video from the American Civil Liberties Union condemns the U.S. government practice of issuing death sentences without due process as part of its targeted killing policy. "Targeted Killing" is being released to coincide with the filing today of an unprecedented lawsuit by the ACLU and the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) challenging the government's asserted authority to use lethal force against U.S. citizens located far from any battlefield without judicial process, and without disclosing the standards it uses to target individuals for death.

needless to say, glenn also has a few thoughts to ponder...

What I've found most disturbing about this controversy from the start is how many Americans are willing to blindly believe the Government's accusations of Terrorism against their fellow citizens -- provided they're Muslims with foreign-sounding names -- without needing to see any evidence at all. All government officials have to do is anonymously leak to the media extremely vague accusations against someone without any evidence presented (Awlaki is involved in multiple plots!!), and a substantial number of people will then immediately run around yelling: Kill that Terrorist!!

It's an authoritarian scene out of some near-future dystopian novel, yet it's exactly what is happening. This is precisely the reaction of a substantial portion of the population which has been trained to believe every unproven government accusation of Terrorism. The mere utterance of the accusation -- Terrorist -- sends them into mindless, fear-driven submission, so extreme that they're willing even to endorse a Presidential-imposed death penalty on American citizens with no due process: about the most tyrannical power that can be imagined, literally. The fact that this very same Government is continuously and repeatedly wrong when it makes those accusations does not seem to be even a cause for hesitation among this faction. They just keep dutifully reciting the ultimate authoritarian anthem: if my Government says it, it must be true, and I don't need to see any evidence or indulge any of this bothersome process stuff -- trials and courts or whatever -- before punishment is meted out, including the death penalty.

So now Barack Obama is being sued by an American citizen who is forced to plead with a court to protect him from due-process-free, state-sanctioned murder. There are multiple reasons why this lawsuit may not succeed, beginning with the demonstrated reluctance of federal judges to "interfere with" war-related decisions of the President, particularly when the specter of Terrorism is raised. The power-revering factions on the Right have joined with some Democratic loyalists who are comfortable with any power now that their Party controls the White House. But if the Obama administration succeeds in vesting itself with the power to order American citizens killed far from any battlefield, with no evidence of violent resistance to arrest and no due process whatsoever to contest the accusations, that is a power that will endure with future Presidents as well.

as usually happens when i'm engaged with non-u.s. citizens during my many travels, i get the opportunity to hear what they think about current events and i'm particularly interested in hearing what they think about my country from their respective vantage points... it isn't in the least bit comforting to hear them worrying about what kind of message the u.s. is sending to the budding despots in their own countries who justify increasingly harsh measures by saying, "well, the u.s. does it, why shouldn't we...?"

the u.s. dearly loves to paint itself as the positive role model for the rest of the world but seems to be very nearly blind, either through ignorance or by choice, to just how true that is as well as to the fact that, throughout the history of humankind, actions ALWAYS speak louder than words...

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It's official: hopey-changey is dead

follow-up to previous post...

from muriel kane at raw story...

From the point of view of civil libertarians, the Obama administration has been an exercise in frustration, with every hopeful sign followed by failures to live up to its own promises.

The ACLU has just issued a report (pdf), titled "Establishing a New Normal: National Security, Civil Liberties, and Human Rights Under the Obama Administration," which focuses on this pattern of inconsistency.

"The administration has displayed a decidedly mixed record," explains ACLU Executive Director Anthony D. Romero, "resulting, on a range of issues, in the very real danger that the Obama administration will institutionalize some of the most troublesome policies of the previous administration -- in essence, creating a troubling 'new normal.'"

As summarized in a press release announcing the report, "President Obama has made great strides in some areas, such as his auspicious first steps to categorically prohibit torture, outlaw the CIA's use of secret overseas detention sites and release the Bush administration's torture memos, but he has failed to eliminate some of the worst policies put in place by President Bush, such as military commissions and indefinite detention. He has also expanded the Bush administration's 'targeted killing' program."

[...]

The transparency section, for example, emphasizes that the program of "targeted killing" of suspected terrorists has been "shrouded in secrecy," and that despite a FOIA request by the ACLU, "the CIA has refused even to confirm or deny whether it has records about the program."

It also points out that rather than living up to Obama's promise as a candidate that he would make sure whistleblowers got protection, "the administration has been prosecuting them."

[...]

"We urge the administration to recommit itself to the ideals that the President himself invoked in his first days in office," the report urges. "Our democracy cannot survive if crucial public policy decisions are made behind closed doors, implemented in secret, and never subjected to meaningful public oversight and debate. It cannot survive if the public does not know what policies have been adopted in its name."

Another striking revelation appears in the section on surveillance: "Like the Bush administration, the Obama administration has invested border agents with the authority to engage in suspicionless searches of Americans' laptops and cell phones at the border; Americans who return home from abroad may now [see below *] find themselves confronted with a border agent who, rather than welcoming them home, insists on copying their electronic records -- including emails, address books, photos, and videos -- before allowing them to enter the country. (Through FOIA, the ACLU has learned that in the last 20 months alone, border agents have used this power thousands of times.)"

[...]

[I]f the Obama administration does not effect a fundamental break with the Bush administration’s policies on detention, accountability, and other issues, but instead creates a lasting legal architecture in support of those policies, then it will have ratified, rather than rejected, the dangerous notion that America is in a permanent state of emergency and that core liberties must be surrendered forever."

* "now" is a relative term... i had all of my digital devices - laptop, memory stick, cd's, dvd's, camera, camera memory card - seized by customs in san francisco when returning from europe on 1 june 2007 (funny how some dates are embedded in my memory) and not returned for three weeks... reason given: "forensics"... i was appalled but there wasn't a damn thing i could do about it... fortunately, given the multiple times i've returned to the u.s. since then, i've only received a smile and a wave from customs... (quick, where's some wood so i can knock on it...!)

and so it goes...

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Ashcroft, Rumsfeld and Tenet urged the 9/11 Commission to limit its investigation

i'm so tired of all these little bits and pieces when at this point in time we can be reasonably sure we still don't know the whole story...

anyway, here's another little piece...

Senior Bush administration officials sternly cautioned the 9/11 Commission against probing too deeply into the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, according to a document recently obtained by the ACLU.

The notification came in a letter dated January 6, 2004, addressed by Attorney General John Ashcroft, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and CIA Director George J. Tenet [ACLU PDF document, page 26]. The ACLU described it as a fax sent by David Addington, then-counsel to former vice president Dick Cheney.

In the message, the officials denied the bipartisan commission's request to question terrorist detainees, informing its two senior-most members that doing so would "cross" a "line" and obstruct the administration's ability to protect the nation.

here's the letter... see for yourself how those three bozos tied the hands of those seeking the truth...


(click on image for larger version)

fer god's sake... can't we just get to the truth and get past all of this dribble-drabble crap...

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Change we can believe in - a legal framework for immunity from prosecution for torture

more happy holiday perspective...

Impunity or Accountability

In case after case, the Obama administration has echoed — and in some instances exceeded — Bush-era claims designed to cover up despicable acts committed in the name of fighting terrorism and avoiding accountability for the responsible officials. Last month, for example, the Justice Department filed a brief in the Supreme Court opposing review of another lawsuit by torture victims. The brief argued that there was no basis for claims by former detainees at Guantánamo Bay, since at the time of their detention, between 2002 and 2004, it was not firmly established that their treatment was illegal.

That would be an outrageous argument coming from any administration. But it is even more disappointing coming from one that has said torture is clearly illegal. “The Bush administration constructed a legal framework for torture,” observes Jameel Jaffer, who leads the American Civil Liberties Union’s National Security Project, “but the Obama administration is constructing a legal framework for impunity.”

he who has the gold makes the rules...

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Extraordinary rendition of a U.S. citizen - it could happen to you...!

note: mr. meshal was never charged...

"U.S. officials repeatedly threatened Mr. Meshal with torture, forced disappearance, and execution in order to coerce him to confess to wrongdoing in which he had not engaged and to associations that he did not have," according to the lawsuit [the suit, brought on behalf of Amir Meshal by the American Civil Liberties Union, is the first by a U.S. citizen seeking damages for the practice of "rendition," the extrajudicial transfer of terrorist suspects between countries], which targets two FBI agents, identified as Chris Higgenbotham and Steve Hersem, and two unidentified U.S. officials who allegedly questioned Meshal in Kenya and Ethiopia.

A spokesman for the FBI declined to comment, citing the Justice Department's policy in civil litigation cases.

Meshal, a Muslim born to Egyptian parents, traveled to Somalia in 2006 "to enrich his study of Islam," according to the lawsuit. Mogadishu, the Somali capital, had recently come under the control of a militia known as the Islamic Courts Union. Later that year, the U.S.- and Ethiopian-backed Transitional Federal Government of Somalia launched a military offensive and took back the city.

As he fled the fighting, Meshal was picked up in Kenya, near the Somali border, and held at the behest of U.S. officials, often in filthy and crowded cells, according to the lawsuit. He was repeatedly questioned by FBI agents who threatened to send him to Israel or Egypt unless he acknowledged ties to al-Qaeda, the lawsuit alleges.

Meshal signed a document waiving counsel, but the lawsuit claims that the FBI told him doing so was the only way he would get home, effectively leaving him no choice.

When a Kenyan human rights group filed a habeas petition on behalf of Meshal and other foreigners picked up at the border with Somalia, the American was secretly flown back to Somalia, where he was held for a number of days, before being taken to Ethiopia. He was also questioned repeatedly by U.S. agents in Ethiopia before finally being allowed to return to the United States on May 26, 2007, the suit says.

mr. meshal is now back home in new jersey...

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I've never understood those who are so rabidly opposed to the ACLU

imho, they're doing most of the heavy lifting in the seemingly endless battle against our own government to uphold our civil liberties, accountability and the rule of law...

In the spring of 2003, long before Abu Ghraib or secret prisons became part of the American vocabulary, a pair of recently hired lawyers at the American Civil Liberties Union noticed a handful of news reports about allegations of abuse of prisoners in American custody.

The lawyers, Jameel Jaffer and Amrit Singh, wondered: Was there a broader pattern of abuse, and could a Freedom of Information Act request uncover it? Some of their colleagues, more experienced with the frustrations of such document demands, were skeptical. One made a tongue-in-cheek offer of $1 for every page they turned up.

Six years later, the detention document request and subsequent lawsuit are among the most successful in the history of public disclosure, with 130,000 pages of previously secret documents released to date and the prospect of more.

The case has produced revelation after revelation: battles between the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the military over the treatment of detainees at the Guantánamo Bay prison camp; autopsy reports on prisoners who died in custody in Afghanistan and Iraq; the Justice Department’s long-secret memorandums justifying harsh interrogation methods; and day-by-day descriptions of what happened inside the Central Intelligence Agency’s overseas prisons.

it's not as if we needed the aclu to stoke our suspicions about what's been happening but we sure as hell have needed them to help us move beyond mere suspicions to real facts...

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So much for "change we can believe in"...

i was one of the first victims of this odious policy... on 1 june 2006, my laptop, digital camera, memory card, dvd's, flash drive and cd's were seized by the ice in san francisco on my arrival from frankfurt... they held them for three weeks before sending them back... reason...? forensics... HA...!

The Obama administration will largely preserve Bush-era procedures allowing the government to search -- without suspicion of wrongdoing -- the contents of a traveler's laptop computer, cellphone or other electronic device, although officials said new policies would expand oversight of such inspections.

The policy, disclosed Thursday in a pair of Department of Homeland Security directives, describes more fully than did the Bush administration the procedures by which travelers' laptops, iPods, cameras and other digital devices can be searched and seized when they cross a U.S. border. And it sets time limits for completing searches.

But representatives of civil liberties and travelers groups say they see little substantive difference between the Bush-era policy, which prompted controversy, and this one.

"It's a disappointing ratification of the suspicionless search policy put in place by the Bush administration," said Catherine Crump, staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union. "It provides a lot of procedural safeguards, but it doesn't deal with the fundamental problem, which is that under the policy, government officials are free to search people's laptops and cellphones for any reason whatsoever."

i retained the receipt i was given by the ice so that i could pull it out on the off-chance it ever happened again... i kept it in my laptop case which, during a visit with the family of friends in salta, argentina, was peed in by the family cat... needless to say, i had to get a new laptop case but i still have the receipt, complete with vile cat pee smell, in a sealed baggie in the new laptop case... every time i pass through u.s. customs, it's at the ready... i eagerly await the wrinkled nose of the customs officer when he opens that little bag...!

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In the words of the torture memos...

the impact is much greater when hearing the actual words read from the pages of a memo written by jay bybee who had been tasked with justifying the use of torture by the bush administration...

from the aclu via information clearing house...

ACLU video features prominent figures like Oscar-winning director Oliver Stone and a 9/11 family member reading from one of the infamous Bush administration legal memos used to justify the use of torture against detainees in U.S. custody. The video calls for accountability and the restoration of the rule of law.

The video includes appearances by Oliver Stone, 9/11 family member Patricia Perry, actors Rosie Perez, Noah Emmerich, John Doman and Reg E. Cathey, and musical composer Philip Glass, among others, reading directly from a memo authored by Jay Bybee, former head of the Justice Departments Office of Legal Counsel under the Bush administration. The memo was released in April as part of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the ACLU.

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Tomorrow, the ACLU begins presenting oral arguments in its FISA Amendments Act (FAA) lawsuit

this should be interesting...

from the aclu...

Tomorrow, we’ll be in court presenting oral arguments in our challenge to the unconstitutional FISA Amendments Act (FAA) — the law passed by Congress last year that gave the government virtually unchecked power to intercept Americans’ international e-mails and telephone calls. As you may recall, we filed a lawsuit to stop the government from spying under the FAA less than an hour after the Act was signed into law by President Bush on July 10, 2008.

here's the skinny on the lawsuit...

1. The defendants in our lawsuits (e.g. the people we’re suing) are John (Mike) McConnell, Director of National Intelligence; Lt. Gen. Keith B. Alexander, Director of the NSA and Chief of the Central Security Service; and Michael Mukasey, Attorney General.

2. We’ve filed the case in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

3. Our superstar roster of plaintiffs (e.g. the people and groups we’re suing on behalf of) include The Nation magazine, journalists Naomi Klein and Chris Hedges, attorneys David Nevin, Scott McKay, Dan Arshack and Sylvia Royce, and a whole bunch of orgs that run the gamut from Amnesty International to the Global Fund for Women. (You can check out the full list of our plaintiffs online at www.aclu.org/faa.)

4. Three of our main points:

* The FAA violates the Fourth Amendment because it allows the government to gobble up the constitutionally protected communications of American citizens and residents without getting individualized warrants, and without specifying the time, place or length of the surveillance, and not specifying how the info gathered will be disseminated, or how long it’ll be kept. (You know, the who/what/where/when/why.)

* The FAA also violates the First Amendment by chilling lawful expressive speech without adequate justification by authorizing the government to intercept constitutionally protected communications without judicial oversight.

* The challenged law violates the principle of separation of powers by allowing the government to continue surveillance activities even if the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court has deemed those activities illegal. (Good idea, right? Asking the government to obey the law?)

this youtube clip, posted a year ago, gives a nice summary...

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