Overlords of US Torture Must Be Punished

Overlords of US Torture Must Be Punished
The US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Jay S Bybee presides with apparent comfortable authority over his high jurisdiction. The Ninth Circuit is the largest. The great cases of the West Coast states are argued out before him. His record as a lawyer is notable. He has to his name a distinguished volume on the Eighth Amendment: we can assume that seared in his mind are its words: "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people".

Given numerical, historical and rhetorical proximity of the Ninth to the Eighth Amendment - "Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted" - one can be reasonably sure that this leading US judicial authority is an assiduous enforcer of the rights of the individual against the federal government; that he will ensure that torture or other inhuman or degrading treatment is not meted out against persons in custody; and that the government is brought to account whenever those great constitutional rights are under attack.

Or is there a huge "maybe" against Judge Bybee? If so, does it have transatlantic implications in the heart of Britain? In an extraordinary event of the past week, President Barack Obama, himself a distinguished American jurist, with a profound understanding of what he may now regard as his own Constitution, has exposed Bybee's complicity in a terrifying case of double standards.

It took real Presidential courage, and public disclosure of a kind almost unimaginable in the traditionally cautious thinking of British governments of all colours, to release to documents detailing decisions about the unusual treatment of al-Qa'ida suspects. It is likely to lead to a change of heart by the US government about the disclosure to our own courts of documents concerning cases like that of Binyam Mohamed. The newly released documents are now available online. Included is one dated 1 August 2002. It is long and detailed. Eighteen full pages closely typed and single-spaced. It is signed in the manuscript of Jay S Bybee, as the holder of the powerful and influential position of US Assistant Attorney General. It is addressed to another lawyer, John Rizzo, of the CIA.

One can almost imagine the fictional agent Jack Bauer, waterboard in hand, palpitating Abu Zubaydah before him, as he read it. The opinion discusses 10 techniques of "certain proposed conduct". The list is chilling: (1) attention grasp, (2) walling, (3) facial hold, (4) facial slap (insult slap), (5) cramped confinement, (6) wall standing, (7) stress positions, (8) sleep deprivation, (9) insects placed with the subject in a confinement box, and (10) the waterboard. All are sanitised descriptions of something very unpleasant indeed.

Bybee's conclusion is that the use of those techniques, either separately or in combination, would not violate US law, because, as he put it, "no evidence exists that this course of conduct produces any prolonged mental harm". Had Mr (as he then was) Bybee made that submission in the Queen's Bench Division in London, he would have been given the shortest shrift, as befits the intellectually indefensible.

President Obama has been criticised by some, including the respected American Civil Liberties Union, for discouraging prosecution of US agents who followed Bybee's now notorious opinion. Put crudely, those who may have administered what we would regard as torture will get away with it. They were merely obeying orders, so may be excused.

This is not only an unattractive proposition but one with which I do not agree, at least when considering those who may have been involved at a senior level. The revelations made on Presidential orders seem to me a refreshing change of approach, telling the world that the slate is being cleaned of executive acts of a kind that will not appear again.

The much derided notion of ethics in the governmental process rears its head from time to time, usually to be dashed by scandal or convenience. Pragmatic incrementalism is all too easy, the disease afflicting all governments when they feel compelled by the exigencies of the day to compromise on principle. President Obama has made a balanced choice, weighing proportionality in favour of confessing America's wrongs to the world as a promise, given in earnest, of better things to come, but letting off the hook those who were the instrumentalists of the unacceptable.

However, that is not the end of the matter. What about the conductors - the Jay S Bybees and others who may have been the conductors of the discordant and wailing orchestra of inhuman and degrading interrogation? And what if there were any orchestrators from Britain or other allied countries? The Attorney General, Baroness Scotland, announced the beginning of a police inquiry into the Binyam Mohamed case and possibly others. What, if anything, results will depend on evidence and, even if there is evidence, formidable considerations of public interest will arise.

Perhaps President Obama has set an acceptable starting standard - of opening the issue to judgment in the court of public opinion, with a view to a future in which we accept that civilised behaviour is worth a thousand forced confessions.

Republicans, the disappearing party

The Republican Point of No Return
There was a point not long after the 2006 midterm elections when observers began to note that Republicans were in truly terrible shape, that a staggering number of Senate and House Republicans were acutely vulnerable in their re-elections, and that in all likelihood, if the GOP failed to reconnect with voters, they would suffer even more substantial losses in 2008.

Republicans are in even weaker shape now. The party is contracting in size as it self-marginalizes; the number of voters who identify themselves as Republican is at its lowest point in decades, and nearly every poll shows a dramatic divergence of opinion between self-identifying Republicans and self-identifying Independents. The fight for the "middle voter" has been fought and won by the Democrats, who are consistently viewed as more capable on substantive policy issues than Republicans. A recent Gallup poll showed that 71 percent of voters trust Obama on the economy. That number is built on a strong coalition of Democratic and Independent voters. 97 percent of Democrats and 68 percent of Independents expressed confidence in Obama's handling of the economy, compared to only 38 percent of Republicans. On an issue as critically important to voters as the economy, a 30 point divide in viewpoints between Republicans and Independents spells serious trouble going forward.

If the GOP has any hope of being competitive in the 2010 midterms, it had better figure out a way to appeal to Independents again. But if Republicans had any intention of reconnecting with those voters, this week's headlines don't give any indication.

During the much-panned Republican "tea party" protests, aimed at high taxes (and also wasteful spending and also socialism and also Obama's secret Muslim roots and also his fake birth certificate and also a few other things one might write on a poster board), Texas Governor Rick Perry threatened to secede. Tom Delay defended him - and secession. So did Rush Limbaugh. Republicans touted the protests as an impressive showing of conservative online organizing. But their success in numbers belies a serious problem.

Republicans are right to recognize how critical their capacity to organize will be toward their future electoral success. But as the Republican base gets smaller, and more ideological, organizing the base may very well mean alienating a critical group of voters - just about everyone else. Still Republican politicians are no less dependent on their base for money and volunteers, which may explain the recent propensity of national Republicans to read conspiracy-driven paranoia into the Congressional Record. The complication, of course, is that Republicans who are unable to depend on the GOP base will never build an organization capable of winning elections. But those who do depend on that base will be constrained by a policy agenda well outside the mainstream.

Conservative Extremists Inadvertently Admit They Are Guilty of Behavior in DHS Report

Conservative Extremists Inadvertently Admit They Are Guilty of Behavior in DHS Report
Since the Department of Homeland Security declassified an April 7 report detailing potential increases in right-wing extremism, media figures -- including CNN's Lou Dobbs, conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh, Fox News' Sean Hannity, Fox News national political commentator Andrea Tantaros, and Fox News contributor Michelle Malkin -- have advanced the claim that the Obama administration is targeting conservatives and others simply because they disagree with administration policies and proposals. For example, during the April 14 edition of his nationally syndicated radio show, Limbaugh claimed: "[Y]ou have a report from Janet Napolitano and Barack Obama Department of Homeland Security portraying standard, ordinary, everyday conservatives as posing a bigger threat to this country than Al Qaeda terrorists or genuine enemies of this country like Kim Jong-Il." However, while the report addressed potential issues that could spur right-wing extremism, it did not allege that someone is an extremist simply because he or she holds conservative views.

The DHS report concluded that "rightwing extremists may be gaining new recruits by playing on their fears about several emergent issues. The economic downturn and the election of the first African American president present unique drivers for rightwing radicalization and recruitment." The report also cited as potential mobilizing issues for right-wing extremism "immigration and citizenship, the expansion of social programs to minorities, and restrictions on firearms ownership and use," as well as "[r]ightwing extremist paranoia ... harkening back to the 'New World Order' conspiracy theories of the 1990s."

Fox's Tea Party Movement Supports Off Shore Tax Fraud

Republican "Tea Baggers" take note
One wonders if Phil Gramm has been made just a tad nervous by the news on Tuesday that one of UBS's super-wealthy private clients has pleaded guilty to tax evasion. That's the second case in two weeks involving the bank at which the former senator is a vice chairman, and 100 other clients are under investigation for possible bank-assisted tax fraud.

Gramm, the Republican former chair of the Senate Finance Committee, where he authored much of the deregulatory legislation at the heart of the current banking meltdown, has for the six years since he left office helped lead a foreign-owned bank specializing in tax dodges for the wealthy. These schemes by the Swiss-based UBS not only force the rest of us taxpayers to pay more to make up the government revenue shortfall but are blatantly illegal. In February, UBS admitted to having committed fraud and conspiracy and agreed to pay a fine of $780 million. Republican "Tea Baggers" take note: Offshore tax havens do not equal populist revolt.

In the UBS "deferred prosecution agreement" with the Justice Department, the bank agreed to turn over the names of its secret account holders to avoid a criminal indictment. The complicity of top executives in this far-ranging scheme to use foreign tax havens to cheat the US treasury of billions in uncollected taxes was noted at the time in a Justice Department statement: "Swiss bankers routinely traveled to the United States to market Swiss bank secrecy to United States clients interested in attempting to evade United States income taxes."

What did Gramm think all of those Swiss bankers from his firm were doing over here? Was he totally clueless? The Justice Department statement suggests otherwise: "UBS executives knew that UBS's cross-border business violated the law. They refused to stop this activity, however, and in fact instructed their bankers to grow the business. The reason was money--the business was too profitable to give up. This was not a mere compliance oversight, but rather a knowing crime motivated by greed and disrespect of the law."

Republicans Choke On Excessive Government Surveillance They Supported

The ultimate reaping of what one sows: right-wing edition
Right-wing polemicists today are shrieking in self-pitying protest over a new report from the Department of Homeland Security sent to local police forces which warns of growing "right-wing extremist activity." The report (.pdf) identifies attributes of these right-wing extremists, warning that a growing domestic threat of violence and terrorism "may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single-issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration" and "groups that reject federal authority in favor of state or local authority."

Conservatives have responded to this disclosure as though they're on the train to FEMA camps. The Right's leading political philosopher and intellectual historian, Jonah Goldberg, invokes fellow right-wing giant Ronald Reagan and says: "Here we go Again," protesting that "this seems so nakedly ideological." Michelle Malkin, who spent the last eight years cheering on every domestic surveillance and police state program she could find, announces that it's "Confirmed: The Obama DHS hit job on conservatives is real!" Lead-War-on-Terror-cheerleader Glenn Reynolds warns that DHS -- as a result of this report (but not, apparently, anything that happened over the last eight years) -- now considers the Constitution to be a "subversive manifesto." Super Tough Guy Civilization-Warrior Mark Steyn has already concocted an elaborate, detailed martyr fantasy in which his house is surrounded by Obama-dispatched, bomb-wielding federal agents. Malkin's Hot Air stomps its feet about all "the smears listed in the new DHS warning about 'right-wing extremism.'"

It's certainly true that federal police efforts directed at domestic political movements -- even ones with a history of inspiring violence in both the distant and recent past -- require real vigilance and oversight, and it's also true that the DHS description of these groups seems excessively broad with the potential for mischief. But the political faction screeching about the dangers of the DHS is the same one that spent the last eight years vastly expanding the domestic Surveillance State and federal police powers in every area. DHS -- and the still-creepy phrase "homeland security" -- became George Bush's calling card. The Republicans won the 2002 election by demonizing those who opposed its creation. All of the enabling legislation underlying this Surveillance State -- from the Patriot Act to the Military Commissions Act, from the various FISA "reforms" to massive increases in domestic "counter-Terrorism" programs -- are the spawns of the very right-wing movement that today is petrified that this is all being directed at them.

When you cheer on a Surveillance State, you have no grounds to complain when it turns its eyes on you. If you create a massive and wildly empowered domestic surveillance apparatus, it's going to monitor and investigate domestic political activity. That's its nature. I'd love to know how many of the participants in today's right-wing self-victim orgy uttered a peep of protest about any of this, from 2005:

F.B.I. Watched Activist Groups, New Files Show

WASHINGTON, Dec. 19 - Counterterrorism agents at the Federal Bureau of Investigation have conducted numerous surveillance and intelligence-gathering operations that involved, at least indirectly, groups active in causes as diverse as the environment, animal cruelty and poverty relief, newly disclosed agency records show.

After the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, John Ashcroft, who was then attorney general, loosened restrictions on the F.B.I.'s investigative powers, giving the bureau greater ability to visit and monitor Web sites, mosques and other public entities in developing terrorism leads. The bureau has used that authority to investigate not only groups with suspected ties to foreign terrorists, but also protest groups suspected of having links to violent or disruptive activities.

But the documents, coming after the Bush administration's confirmation that President Bush had authorized some spying without warrants in fighting terrorism, prompted charges from civil rights advocates that the government had improperly blurred the line between terrorism and acts of civil disobedience and lawful protest.

One F.B.I. document indicates that agents in Indianapolis planned to conduct surveillance as part of a "Vegan Community Project." Another document talks of the Catholic Workers group's "semi-communistic ideology." A third indicates the bureau's interest in determining the location of a protest over llama fur planned by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

The documents, provided to The New York Times over the past week, came as part of a series of Freedom of Information Act lawsuits brought by the American Civil Liberties Union. For more than a year, the A.C.L.U. has been seeking access to information in F.B.I. files on about 150 protest and social groups that it says may have been improperly monitored.

The F.B.I. had previously turned over a small number of documents on antiwar groups, showing the agency's interest in investigating possible anarchist or violent links in connection with antiwar protests and demonstrations in advance of the 2004 political conventions. And earlier this month, the A.C.L.U.'s Colorado chapter released similar documents involving, among other things, people protesting logging practices at a lumber industry gathering in 2002.

The latest batch of documents, parts of which the A.C.L.U. plans to release publicly on Tuesday, totals more than 2,300 pages and centers on references in internal files to a handful of groups, including PETA, the environmental group Greenpeace and the Catholic Workers group, which promotes antipoverty efforts and social causes.

"It's clear that this administration has engaged every possible agency, from the Pentagon to N.S.A. to the F.B.I., to engage in spying on Americans," said Ann Beeson, associate legal director for the A.C.L.U.

"You look at these documents," Ms. Beeson said, "and you think, wow, we have really returned to the days of J. Edgar Hoover, when you see in F.B.I. files that they're talking about a group like the Catholic Workers league as having a communist ideology."

I was in Minneapolis and St. Paul during the 2008 GOP Convention and witnessed first-hand massive federal police raids and "preventive" arrests of peaceful, law-abiding protesters and even the violent arrests of journalists, and I don't recall any complaints from Jonah Goldberg or Michelle Malkin. I don't recall Glenn Reynolds or Mark Steyn complaining that the FBI, for virtually the entire Bush administration, was systematically abusing its new National Security Letters authorities under the Patriot Act to collect extremely invasive information, in secret, about Americans who had done nothing wrong. Russ Feingold's efforts to place limits and abuse-preventing safeguards on these Patriot Act powers in 2006 attracted a grand total of 10 votes in the Senate -- none Republican.

Obama Derangement Syndrome epidemic on conservative airwaves

Obama Derangement Syndrome epidemic on conservative airwaves

In recent months, the violent, doomsday, and anti-intellectual rhetoric that has long been a staple of conservative media has taken a notable turn in at least three significant ways: previously confined to the right-wing media fringe, the rhetoric is now a constant across the full spectrum of conservative media; it is louder and meaner, with conservative media figures appealing overtly to feelings of anger and paranoia in their audience; and it is focused, tied to the specific political aim of undermining the Obama administration and the Congress.

None other than David Horowitz notes "an interesting phenomenon on the Right, which is beginning to cause me concern": "the over-top-hysteria in response to the first months in office of our new president." Horowitz calls this "hysteria" "Obama Derangement Syndrome."

Indeed, the rise of anti-government speech -- and the explosion of anti-Obama rhetoric -- on right-wing radio, Fox News, and among conservatives in other media outlets tracks directly with the arrival of the new administration and its broad efforts to address the myriad and interlocking problems confronting the country. Rather than engaging in substantive policy analysis and critique, the Glenn Becks, Sean Hannitys, and Rush Limbaughs of radio and television insult their audience with simplistic attacks on Obama and his administration's initiatives.

Far from informing the public, Beck, Hannity, Limbaugh, and numerous others on Fox News and elsewhere launch attacks at Obama, progressives, and their policy proposals with accusations of any one or more "isms" that bear no relationship to reality or even to each other. They warn darkly of purported efforts by the Obama administration to cede U.S. sovereignty to a world order rather than engaging in meaningful discussions about the United States' role and image in the world. They scapegoat vulnerable groups, encouraging the perception that undocumented immigrants, the poor, and racial and ethnic minorities are to blame for economic problems in this country. During a time of numerous high-profile acts of gun violence, they claim with alarm that Obama intends to seize their guns. Fox News has adopted the Tax Day "tea parties" as its own, urging its audience to organize and attend what it characterizes as protests of Obama administration tax and economic policies; the network's promotions of these tea-party protests have been largely devoid of meaningful and truthful discussion of the actual merits and flaws in the administration's proposals for reform -- and of little substantive attention to the question of whether Fox News' audience would be better or worse off under those proposals the network is encouraging its audience to protest.

On his show, Beck has gone so far as to purport to imitate Obama pouring gasoline on the American public to light it on fire.

The demagoguery in the conservative media could have real consequences for the country and for efforts by law and policymakers to address serious problems. It is a disservice to the conservative media's audience and to the country, involving distortions of issues with falsehoods and with rhetoric and imagery that incite anger rather than encouraging citizens to engage meaningfully in political and legislative debate and process.

Republicans Obsessed with ACORN Conspiracy Theories

Republicans Obsessed with ACORN Conspiracy Theories
Michael Steele is still the chairman of the Republican National Committee.

He's just being picking fights with people who don't have microphones.

Instead of stirring it up with the real boss of the Grand Old Party, Rush Limbaugh, or with Arlen Specter and the handful of congressional Republicans who might actually want to extend their party's platform beyond the word "no," Steele has returned to the obsessive focus that made him a favorite of the party's neanderthal wing: picking on poor people, working families and the organizations that advocate for people who do not have closets full of pinstripe suits.

To be more precise, Steele is attacking ACORN, charging that the group Republicans attacked with such determination during their failed 2008 campaign is now part of a scheme to "falsify the U.S. Census and manipulate elections in their favor."

"Our democracy, and the principle of 'One Person, One Vote' are in jeopardy," rants Steele in -- you guessed it -- a fund-raising appeal.

Steele's latest claim goes like this:

It seems the Obama Administration has plans to rig the Census results.

President Obama's old friends from ACORN, the leftist, urban "community" organization with a long history of promoting vote fraud, has been chosen by the Administration as a "partner" with the Census Bureau to determine population counts in cities around the country.

With this group's track record of coming up with countless fraudulent voter registrations in heavily Democrat areas to sway elections to ultra-liberals, you can be sure they'll be manipulating population numbers as well.

And after receiving millions in political payback from the Democrats' recently passed "Stimulus" Bill, ACORN's community organizers are eager to once again take action to aid their old friend in the White House.

Why is this important? The U.S. population has shifted in the last ten years. States like Illinois, Michigan, New York and Pennsylvania (all states Obama won in 2008) have smaller populations, and states like Arizona, Georgia and South Carolina (all states that John McCain carried) have gained population.

The trend illustrates that urban strongholds, which favor Democrats, continue to lose population to more decentralized areas in states more likely to lean Republican.

If the Democrats and their friends at ACORN have their way, the Census will only "estimate" state populations and therefore be subject to political calculations. And surely their estimate will be far higher than the actual number of people, and voters, present.

We must not let the Democrats and their radical leftist allies falsify the U.S. Census and manipulate elections in their favor. Our democracy, and the principle of "One Person, One Vote" are in jeopardy.

Please help the Republican Party's effort to spread the word about the Obama Democrats' misuse of power and plans to end free and fair elections. Support our effort to get the word out about this threat and ensure an accurate, non-partisan Census by making a contribution of $1,000, $500, $100, $50 or $25 to the Republican National Committee today.

Your gift will also help support the recruitment and election of principled candidates who will defeat the Democrats in 2010 and pave the way to send Barack Obama packing in 2012.

Yikes!

Sounds scary.

And that's the point.

For all his talk about diversity and reaching out to communities that have not always been attracted by the Grand Old Party's anti-immigrant, anti-worker, anti-community messaging, Steele knows that the party's donors get excited by, er, well, the Grand Old Party's anti-immigrant, anti-worker, anti-community messaging.

Steele's ACORN obsession is particularly frustrating -- and dishonest -- because it targets one of the few groups in America that has stood consistently on the right side of fights over the census, voter turnout and empowering the poor and working families.

But ACORN/ knows how to fight back.

"Republican Party Chair Michael Steele has finally lost all touch with reality," says ACORN CEO and chief organizer Bertha Lewis. "(He has) sent a message to Republican Party members accusing President Obama and ACORN of scheming to 'falsify the U.S. Census and manipulate elections". He even ridiculously claimed that "Our democracy, and the principle of 'One Person, One Vote' are in jeopardy.'

"Clearly, ACORN's work to help millions of low and middle-income Americans who otherwise wouldn't participate in our electoral process register to vote has Michael Steele scared. And now, he's afraid that the 2010 census will accurately count the entire US population -- including traditionally undercounted minorities and low-income Americans."

Lewis is dealing in hard facts, rather than the fantasies that are Steele's favored political currency. So she confidency declares: "ACORN is not getting billions from the federal government -- and Michael Steele knows it. We are not in charge of the Census -- and Michael Steele knows it. Just like the accusations of the past six months, these ridiculous charges are imaginary and false -- and Michael Steele knows it."

But Lewis is taking things a step further.

She is challenging Steele to meet with her at the home of a family that ACORN has helped fight foreclosure.

Lewis wants Steele to see and hear from "the real ACORN."

And she's betting -- or at least hoping -- that if she Steele and his amen corner in the media was confronted with the reality of ACORN's good works, the RNC chair would back off.

Lewis may be a little more optimistic about the notion that the truth shall set you free.

Steele has a remarkable record of resisting reality. And the media has shown a marked penchant for joining the failed Maryland Senate candidate and his GOP allies in scapegoating ACORN as an alternative to examining real issues related to low-income communities -- a journalistic malpractice detailed in new report from Media Matters illustrates.

But Bertha Lewis and ACORN earn high marks for pushing back at the failed party "leader" who is pushing them around to try and stir up his reactionary base.