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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
EJ
Published Letters: 486 Editor's Choice: 1
Glenn Reynolds is okay with it, apparently:
CHANGE YOU CAN BELIEVE IN: “The National Security Agency intercepted private e-mail messages and phone calls of Americans in recent months on a scale that went beyond the broad legal limits established by Congress last year, government officials said in recent interviews.” [instapundit.com]
Nothing yet from the NRO's Corner, Powerline, Michelle Malkin, etc. - they're still basking in the afterglow of teabagging. Or maybe it's just that they trust Obama, Holder & DiFi.
pow wow has a good answer in the previous thread to the WaPo article you posted (link @ sig): Who defines "the problems" and declares them "corrected"?
WASHINGTON (AP) - The White House says the government will release memos used by the Bush administration to justify harsh interrogations of terror suspects.
Speaking on Air Force One as it approached Mexico City on Thursday, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said the documents would be released at 2:45 p.m. EDT (1845 GMT).
Gibbs said President Barack Obama will issue a statement following the documents' release.
http://www.pr-inside.com/white-house-says-bush-torture-memos-r1187853.htm
A few minutes ago, actually.
The memos have been released and the DOJ is indemnifying CIA employees for "for any monetary judgment or penalty ultimately imposed against him for such conduct and will provide representation in congressional investigations."
http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/2009/April/09-ag-356.html
The memos are probably in the hands of the ACLU and Glenn. Keep refreshing :-)
We will have the OLC torture memos very soon on our site!
New post is up!
In a Guardian article by Zubaydah's attorney.
The Bush administration's false claim that my client was a top al-Qaida official has led to his imprisonment and tortureMonday 30 March 2009
This article was submitted to the CIA prior to publication. Passages redacted by the CIA are marked [...].
Much attention has been paid to the notorious secret torture memoranda signed by James Bybee and Alberto Gonzales, authored by John Yoo, and championed by Vice President Cheney and his aide-de-camp David Addington. [...]
The Senate armed services committee recently released a public report that establishes that almost immediately after Zayn's capture, a group of some of the highest-ranking government officials in the land met in the White House to orchestrate and oversee his torture, months before the now-infamous torture memoranda were issued in August 2002.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/mar/30/guantanamo-abu-zubaydah-torture
The memos are now available at http://www.aclu.org/olcmemos
I had trouble with both the third and fourth memos. The ACLU's server is probably overwhelmed.
Watch ACLU Executive Director Anthony D. Romero talk about the torture memos on ABC tonight at 6:30 EDT. [ACLU tweet]
The segment will air in a few minutes.
The ABC news segment, of course, didn't communicate the horror. Romero's piece lasted just a few seconds and was the only real anti-torture statement. From Stephanopoulos:
Kitt Bond [ranking Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee] believes the administration "released far too much information," adding that he thinks Al Qaeda will use this information to train their followers to resist interrogation and that it will provide "propaganda for Al Qaeda's media machine."
Bottom line: Bond believes this release will "make us less safe and "heighten anger" in parts of the world "where we're trying to make friends."
A former top official in the administration of President George W. Bush called the publication of the memos “unbelievable.”
“It's damaging because these are techniques that work, and by Obama's action today, we are telling the terrorists what they are,” the official said. “We have laid it all out for our enemies. This is totally unnecessary. … Publicizing the techniques does grave damage to our national security by ensuring they can never be used again — even in a ticking-time- bomb scenario where thousands or even millions of American lives are at stake."
“I don't believe Obama would intentionally endanger the nation, so it must be that he thinks either 1. the previous administration, including the CIA professionals who have defended this program, is lying about its importance and effectiveness, or 2. he believes we are no longer really at war and no longer face the kind of grave threat to our national security this program has protected against.”
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0409/21338.html
Kitt with 2 Ts: So sorry - it won't happen again :-)
[Jake Tapper] I asked White House press secretary Robert Gibbs about Bond's charge. Gibbs said that when making the decision as to what he should do with the memos - which human rights groups were seeking through the Freedom of Information Act -- President Obama "wrestled with a number of issues related to national security, related to the rule of law, and related to national security."
"I don't think and the president doesn't believe it's the existence of enhanced interrogation techniques in memos that has made us less safe," Gibbs said. "It's the use of those techniques in the view of the world that has made us less safe. And that's precisely why the president moved swiftly to end" their use on the second day of his presidency.
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/04/white-house-res.html
I'm glad the WH is responding quickly to these criticisms. (I'm glad the question was even asked.)
I didn't get excited about Judge Walker's order, because I pretty much expected it. The administration's response to the order - now that, I expect to get excited about.
bystander - here's a little more on the inquiries you just posted about:
The White House and the Senate Intelligence Committee are in the early stages of inquiries designed to address that issue, which nearly eight years after the Sept. 11 attacks remains one of the most divisive in the intelligence community.
In response to those efforts, the CIA has begun assembling thousands of classified cables that contain daily reports from the agency's secret prisons, tracking the interrogation methods used on high-value detainees and how much information was obtained as a result.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-interrogation18-2009apr18,0,6342280.story
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
219 Democrats and one Republican join in favor of the legislation, which passed by a narrow margin
Salon headlines in your mailbox
