Security Here and Abroad

Jane Mayer and Philippe Sands Discuss Torture Policy

Scott Horton: Torture Memos

This Week's Links: Torture Memos, Prosecution, and Impeachment

Apologies for the long absence. Things have been pretty busy over here. In the meantime, there is plenty for you to read:

• The International Red Cross Report on detainee abuse has been made public. It includes, among other things, "Beatings by use of a collar held around a detainees neck and used to forcefully bang the head and body against the wall." [ICRC Report]
• The ACLU lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act has finally resulted in the release of the OLC memos authorizing torture techniques and abuse against detainees. [OLC Memos]
• It appears, however, that Obama does not want to prosecute the OLC memo's authors, either. [AP]
• The Spanish, however, are still seeking prosecution. [The Public Record]
• Prof. Manfred Nowak, U.N. Rapporteur for Torture, says that refusal to prosecute is a violation of the Convention Against Torture (which compels investigation and prosecution of those accused ot torture). [Der Standard]
• UPDATE: Now it's not even clear whether or not Obama wants to prosecute those who created the torture policies, walking back Rahm Emanuel's comments from the other day ("[A]dministration officials said Monday that Mr. Emanuel had meant the officials who ordered the policies carried out, not the lawyers who provided the legal rationale."). [The New York Times]
• Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) said that it's "certainly possible that an impeachment inquiry is warranted" into torture memo author Bybee (currently a federal judge in the Ninth Circuit). I doubt that Whitehouse will step up to the plate, though. [Rachel Madow]
• Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) says that "grounds for impeachment can be made" against Bybee based on the OLC memos. [Russ Feingold]
• Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) says that "I would support impeachment hearings for Judge Bybee." [Center For American Progress]
  

FOX News Has the Story - Part XIX

Part I: Sex Robots
Part II: Sex Teachers
Part III: Lingerie Bowl
Part IV: Panty Bandits
Part V: Hooters Haircuts
Part VI: Sexy Stripper Scam
Part VII: Stripper Fitness
Part VIII: Exotic Erotic Ball
Bonus: FOX Attacks
Part IX: Drunk Upskirt Pictures
Bonus: FOX Porn
Part X: Bunny Bar
Part XI: Teens Seen Grinding
Part XII: Porno-Tax!
Part XIII: Sexy Teacher
Part XIV: Sugar Mamas and Boy Toys
Part XV: Sexy Part-Time Job
Part XVI: Hot Cops
Part XVII: Sex Sells
Part XVIII: Playboy Halloween

Mark Danner Discusses ICRC Report on C-SPAN

This Week's Links: Torture, Civil Liberties, and Voting Rights

• Mark Danner has written a must-read account of detention and interrogation techniques over the past few years, based on the Red Cross report on torture. [New York Review of Books] [The New York Times]
  
• Letting go of the phrase "enemy combatants" isn't really that big of a deal. [The Los Angeles Times]
• The Washington Post editorial page calls for election reforms. [The Washington Post]
• Andy Worthington compiles a list of all the Guantanamo Bay inmates ever held, and their ultimate status. This is a great resource. [Anti-War.com]
• Jane Mayer wrote a great article on the use of Black Sites back in 2007. [The New Yorker]
  

Presidential Address to Congress

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Bill O'Reilly's Right to Privacy

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Bill O'Reilly's Right to Privacy

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Funny Political News
Joke of the Day

This Week's Links

• On Monday, major First Amendment figure Irving Feiner passed away. [The New York Times]
• Leon Panetta's Senate hearings are posted on the C-SPAN website, for those who care. [C-SPAN]
• Barack Obama writes an op-ed for the Washington Post about the stimulus bill. It looks like he's going to be taking a more active role in the debate from now on. [The Washington Post]
• The Department of Justice is changing. [The New York Times]
• The ACLU debunks a few myths about Guantanamo. [ACLU]. Their website on the topic is worth a read, too. [ACLU].
• According to Reuters, "Two senior British judges accused the United States on Wednesday of threatening to end intelligence cooperation with Britain if they published evidence about the alleged torture of a Guantanamo detainee." [Reuters]
• Guantanamo detainee Benyam Mohammad alleges abuse in Moroccan prison. [The Guardian]
• Debunking some more myths about the effectiveness of torture. [Vanity Fair]
• Scott Horton discusses the British judges linked above. [Harper's]
• Don't mess with Obama's French Fries. [Boston Phoenix]
  

Karen Greenberg on Closing Guantanamo

Karen Greenberg also has a book coming out in March about the first 100 days at Guantanamo.

Rendition Policy Under the Obama Administration

Under current law (Convention Against Torture), it is illegal to "extradite a person to another State where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture." This has been a controversial process over the past eight years under President Bush, since we have in fact rendered persons in our custody to torture-friendly countries such as Egypt. One man, Abu Omar, was sent to Egypt where he was sodomized and had electric shocks applied to his genitals (he is now a free man, since his initial arrest was apparently just a bad case of mistaken identity).

Thankfully, President Obama issued an Executive Order reaffirming the "obligations of officers, employees, and other agents of the United States Government to comply with all pertinent laws and treaties of the United States governing detention and interrogation, including . . . the Convention Against Torture." That same Executive Order went even further, establishing a commission:

"to study and evaluate the practices of transferring individuals to other nations in order to ensure that such practices comply with the domestic laws, international obligations, and policies of the United States and do not result in the transfer of individuals to other nations to face torture or otherwise for the purpose, or with the effect, of undermining or circumventing the commitments or obligations of the United States to ensure the humane treatment of individuals in its custody or control."

So it looks like we'll finally be complying with our legal obligations.

Despite this, the Los Angeles Times has just printed an article ominously warning that Obama has left open the door to the use of "rendition," which it refers to as being "equally controversial" to President Bush's policy of torture, and use of secret prisons (which Obama has also ordered closed, throug Executive Order). However, it seems that this article is susceptible to the common misunderstanding of the difference between "rendition" (a broader term that includes perfectly legal processes, such as extradition) and "extraordinary rendition" (the practice of shipping people off to torture-friendly countries, in violation of our legal obligations). Even though there are some who object to some uses of rendition, "rendition" itself is not nearly as controversial as the use of torture. Therefore, you should take the Los Angeles Times article with a grain of salt, and understand what's actually going on here.

The conservative National Review would do well to take that advice. In a recent column, one of its authors desperately seizes on this article and snidely comments: "Let's give all of the folks who fumed about rendition under Bush a day to voice their outrage over this."

I have a better idea. Let's give the folks at the Los Angeles Times and National Review a day to read up on the topic and correct their mistakes.

UPDATE: Scott Horton at Harper's sees it, too. In this article, he picks apart the Los Angeles Times editorial.

UPDATE II: Glenn Greenwald also commented on the article this afternoon.

UPDATE III: It looks like somebody clued in the National Review. Good for them.

UPDATE IV: Scott Horton discusses the issue (at around the 3:00 mark) on the Rachel Maddow show. Maddow's comments on the Clinton administration aside, it's an okay discussion.

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UPDATE V: Scott Horton and Michael Ratner discuss the issue here.

UPDATE VI: Richard Clarke has an article on the topic here.

Lt. Col. Vandeveld Discusses Why He Resigned as a Guantanamo Prosecutor

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Lt. Col. Vandeveld also discusses his role at Guantanamo in this Washington Post op-ed, and in this sworn declaration in support of Mohammad Jawad's habeas petition.

60 Minutes: Time Running Out For A Two-State Solution?

60 Minutes: Growing Number Of Israelis, Palestinians Say Two-State Solution Is No Longer Possible

Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) is a Liar

The title pretty much says it all. It's pretty despicable how Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) is telling outright lies about the stimulus bill. For instance, he lied when he said that it includes "$300,000 for a sculpture garden in Miami." The stimulus bill contains no such thing. He also lied when he said that, "For every dollar that is spent to help small businesses, $4 is being spent to help upkeep the grass on the lawns of Washington." Again, this is demonstrably false.

There's a difference between principled opposition, on the one hand, and disingenuous obstructionism, on the other. Eric Cantor is a liar and an obstructionist. It's really that simple.