Wuzz Happenin?

Today's cave, from wikipedia:
Photo by Dave Bunnell showing stalagmites, stalactites, and draperies by a pool in Lechuguilla Cave, New Mexico
Today is the day the Senate sells out the Constitution. It's just the fucking constitution, after all, no biggie, just the founding source of law and order for this once-great country. Congress now has a pre-1776 mentality. King George the Tyrant can now outsource violations of the law. Smirky McConstitutionFucker can order a private entity to violate the Constitutional prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures and Congress will say hey, no problem, whatever, it's OK by us, we had our spines removed a decade ago, just do it. And the private entity can invoke the Nuremberg defense: They were just following orders. Javold, Herr Bush.

Here's what Congress is going to pass:

H.R. 6304, THE FISA AMENDMENTS ACT OF 2008 (6/19/2008)

The ACLU recommends a no vote on H.R. 6304, which grants sweeping wiretapping authority to the government with little court oversight and ensures the dismissal of all pending cases against the telecommunication companies. Most importantly:

• H.R. 6304 permits the government to conduct mass, untargeted surveillance of all communications coming into and out of the United States, without any individualized review, and without any finding of wrongdoing.

• H.R. 6304 permits only minimal court oversight. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA Court) only reviews general procedures for targeting and minimizing the use of information that is collected. The court may not know who, what or where will actually be tapped.

• H.R. 6304 contains a general ban on reverse targeting. However, it lacks stronger language that was contained in prior House bills that included clear statutory directives about when the government should return to the FISA court and obtain an individualized order if it wants to continue listening to a US person’s communications.

• H.R.6304 contains an "exigent" circumstance loophole that thwarts the prior judicial review requirement. The bill permits the government to start a spying program and wait to go to court for up to 7 days every time "intelligence important to the national security of the US may be lost or not timely acquired." By definition, court applications take time and will delay the collection of information. It is highly unlikely there is a situation where this exception doesn’t swallow the rule.

• H.R. 6304 further trivializes court review by explicitly permitting the government to continue surveillance programs even if the application is denied by the court. The government has the authority to wiretap through the entire appeals process, and then keep and use whatever it gathered in the meantime.

• H.R. 6304 ensures the dismissal of all cases pending against the telecommunication companies that facilitated the warrantless wiretapping programs over the last 7 years. The test in the bill is not whether the government certifications were actually legal – only whether they were issued. Because it is public knowledge that they were, all the cases seeking to find out what these companies and the government did with our communications will be killed.

• Members of Congress not on Judiciary or Intelligence Committees are NOT guaranteed access to reports from the Attorney General, Director of National Intelligence, and Inspector General.

Of course, FISA is just the tip of the government's abrogation of the Fourth Amendment; every branch, every agency, every law enforcement entity, they're all spying on us.

Tiny ray of light: Judge in Guantanamo case tells the government, no, you're not getting any more postponements, you've had these poor men in jail for six years. If you've had enough evidence to keep them in jail for six years, you're ready for trial right now. Go.

Hire these losers: Mark Penn starts a consulting company with Karen Hughes. Really.

I'm going to the studio to make pears. Reality is too depressing today.

Go Read

Good news story of the day: the Supreme Court ruled that The Great Writ, the writ of habeas corpus, applies to the Guantanamo Bay prisoners: The Rule of Law Prevailed The prisoners are entitled to challenge their detention in federal court; the Bushies have failed in their attempt to create an extrajudicial SuperMax prison for the world. But it was only a 5-4 decision; our democracy rests on the weary shoulders of 88-year-old Justice John Paul Stephens. Elect Obama, save the Court.

To understand why this is so offensive, you must know that in contemporary jargon, "baby mama" means unwed mother: Fox News calls Michelle Obama "Obama's baby mama"

36-year-old right-wing nutjob Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal keeps getting invited to McCain's house for ribs as a VP candidate. Perhaps he's banished a few spirits while he's there? After all, he's an exorcist! Is Bobby Jindal -- Who May Be On McCain's Veep Shortlist -- An Exorcist?

We all know the corporate media is bought and paid for. And then we see the concrete evidence. David Broder, the supposed "dean of the Washington press corps" is selling his own corpse to speak at coporate events. If they're lucky, he then features their issue in a column. Presstitute. David Broder’s Moonlighting: Post columnist benefits from corporate speaking deals

Go Directly to the Dock at the Hague

ABC reports that war criminals Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, George Tenet and John Ashcroft discussed and approved of specific methods of torturing prisoners during meetings in the White House situation room. And though the reporters do not mention him, I have no doubt that the Master of Disaster himself, the psychopath-in-chief George W. Clusterfuck was right in there with them, gleefully discussing violating the most fundamental of human rights, the right not to be tortured.

Under the rules of their own religions, they will certainly go to hell. Before, that, I hope most sincerely that they are taken to the Hague in shackles and paraded in front of the world as the monstrosities that they are. I think the fact that each of these church-going hypocrites approved of torture proves that there is no God, for if there was a God, surely she would have struck each of them down by now.

ABCNews: Top Bush Advisors Approved 'Enhanced Interrogation'
Detailed Discussions Were Held About Techniques to Use on al Qaeda Suspects

ABC cited a top official as saying that Ashcroft asked aloud after one meeting: "Why are we talking about this in the White House? History will not judge this kindly."

Reuters: Top Bush aides approved interrogation tactics: report

"Highly placed sources said a handful of top advisers signed off on how the CIA would interrogate top al Qaeda suspects -- whether they would be slapped, pushed, deprived of sleep or subjected to simulated drowning, called waterboarding," ABC reported.

In addition to Rice, the principals at the time included Vice President Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell, CIA Director George Tenet and Attorney General John Ashcroft, the report said.

Close Guantanamo

The Guantanamo Blog
Sez the Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba — The chief of the U.S. military said Sunday he favors closing the prison here as soon as possible because he believes negative publicity worldwide about treatment of terrorist suspects has been "pretty damaging" to the image of the United States.

"I'd like to see it shut down," Adm. Mike Mullen said in an interview with three reporters who toured the detention center with him on his first visit since becoming chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff last October.

Wear Orange on Friday

ACLU: Close Guantanamo

JANUARY 11, 2008, is the six-year anniversary of the first arrival of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay.

On January 11, we are calling on everyone opposed to torture and indefinite detention to WEAR ORANGE to symbolize their sadness and disgust with the national shame that is Guantánamo Bay.

Sign the Pledge

Talking Points

Gitmo: ‘A politically motivated farce’

Most of these prisoners are guilty of nothing.
An unconstitutional farce, as well.

AP, via MSNBC: Most Gitmo detainees freed after transfer
Four-fifths of ‘vicious killers’ released after return to home countries

The Pentagon called them "among the most dangerous, best-trained, vicious killers on the face of the Earth," sweeping them up after Sept. 11 and hauling them in chains to a U.S. military prison in southeastern Cuba.

Since then, hundreds of the men have been transferred from Guantanamo Bay to other countries, many of them for "continued detention."

And then set free.

[]

our-fifths freed after transfer
But through interviews with justice and police officials, detainees and their families, and using reports from human rights groups and local media, The Associated Press was able to track 245 of those formerly held at Guantanamo. The investigation, which spanned 17 countries, found:

* Once the detainees arrived in other countries, 205 of the 245 were either freed without being charged or were cleared of charges related to their detention at Guantanamo. Forty either stand charged with crimes or continue to be detained.
* Only a tiny fraction of transferred detainees have been put on trial. The AP identified 14 trials, in which eight men were acquitted and six are awaiting verdicts. Two of the cases involving acquittals — one in Kuwait, one in Spain — initially resulted in convictions that were overturned on appeal.
* The Afghan government has freed every one of the more than 83 Afghans sent home. Lawmaker Sibghatullah Mujaddedi, the head of Afghanistan's reconciliation commission, said many were innocent and wound up at Guantanamo because of tribal or personal rivalries.
* At least 67 of 70 repatriated Pakistanis are free after spending a year in Adiala Jail. A senior Pakistani Interior Ministry official said investigators determined that most had been "sold" for bounties to U.S. forces by Afghan warlords who invented links between the men and al-Qaida. "We consider them innocent," said the official, who declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the issue.
* All 29 detainees who were repatriated to Britain, Spain, Germany, Russia, Australia, Turkey, Denmark, Bahrain and the Maldives were freed, some within hours after being sent home for "continued detention."

Some former detainees say they never intended to harm the United States and are bitter.

"I can't wash the three long years of pain, trouble and humiliation from my memory," said Badarzaman Badar, an Afghan who was freed in Pakistan. "It is like a cancer in my mind that makes me disturbed every time I think of those terrible days."

Overall, about 165 Guantanamo detainees have been transferred from Guantanamo for "continued detention," while about 200 were designated for immediate release. Some 420 detainees remain at the U.S. base in Cuba.

‘A politically motivated farce’
Clive Stafford Smith, a British-American attorney representing several detainees, said the AP's findings indicate that innocent men were jailed and that the term "continued detention" is part of "a politically motivated farce."

"The Bush administration wants to be able to say that these are dangerous terrorists who are going to be confined upon their release ... although there is no evidence against many of them," he said.

Recuse, Antonin

WaPo: Retired Generals Want Scalia Off Gitmo Case

Hamdan's lawyers have not called for Scalia to step aside. Instead, five retired generals who support Hamdan's arguments sent a letter late Monday to the court with the request that Scalia withdraw from participating in the case. They say Scalia appears to have prejudged the case.

The retired generals said Scalia's speech in Switzerland "give rise to the unfortunate appearance that ... the justice had made up his mind about the merits" of Hamdan's arguments.

In the speech, first reported by Newsweek, Scalia repeated his views from 2004 that enemy combatants held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, should not have access to U.S. courts and traditional legal rights.

[]

The letter came from five retired generals and admirals: Navy Rear Adm. Donald J. Guter; Navy Rear Adm. John D. Hutson; Vice Adm. Lee F. Gunn; Marine Brig. Gen. David M. Brahms; and Army Brig. Gen. James P. Cullen.

I doubt this show of military might and right will influence chickenhawk Scalia. (Originally I typed 'chickhawk' Scalia, one of the funniest typos ever.)

In today's print edition, WaPo:

Scalia's Recusal Sought in Key Detainee Case
Retired Officers Say Justice's Impartiality Is in Question After Remarks on Combatants

In a letter delivered to the court late yesterday, a lawyer for the retired officers cited news reports of Scalia's March 8 remarks to an audience at the University of Freiburg in Switzerland. Scalia reportedly said it was "crazy" to suggest that combatants captured fighting the United States should receive a "full jury trial," and dismissed suggestions that the Geneva Conventions might apply to detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Scalia's remarks "give rise to the unfortunate appearance that, even before briefing was complete, he had already made up his mind" about issues in the case, the lawyer, David H. Remes, wrote. Noting that Scalia reportedly had discussed the rights of accused terrorists in the context of his son Matthew's recent tour as an Army officer in Iraq, Remes wrote that this creates an appearance of "personal bias arising from his son's military service."

[]

In his letter to the court, Remes said Scalia's reported reference to the Geneva Conventions was of particular concern to the retired officers as it is directly at issue in the case. Their brief supports the view of the petitioner, Salim Ahmed Hamdan, that the conventions apply to him and could entitle him to a court-martial trial like that which U.S. soldiers receive.

Other calls for Scalia's recusal came yesterday from the Center for Constitutional Rights, a civil rights organization that supports the challenge to the military commissions, and from Rep. John D. Conyers (Mich.), the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee.

Previous posts: Ethics, Schmethics (March 27, 2006)

Scalia: 'Flipping a middle finger to his critics' (March 27, 2006)

US Prisons Hold 25% of the World's Prisoners; 1/3 to 1/2 Are Nonviolent Drug Offenders

Photo courtesy National Conference of State Legislatures

Great post on the insanity of the drug laws in America and the millions imprisoned for nonviolent drug 'crimes, by guest poster Hypatia, at Glenn Greenwald's Unclaimed Territory:

Prison & the War on Drugs: Just Say No

While the United States constitutes 5% of the world's population, this “land of the free” holds 25% of the world's prisoners – a third to a half are there for drug offenses . With all the talk of Guantanamo and extraordinary rendition, many overlook that we have a Gulag Prison System here at home, fueled by our drug laws.

Most Americans seldom think about or discuss penal policies in any systematic or focused way. That failure is itself a poltical/ethical crime, because prison and its uses is a consummately moral issue. Sentencing citizens to prison entails sending armed agents of the state after them, then placing them at the tender mercies of scalp-seeking prosecutors, and if convicted, locking them in cages and robbing them of their autonomy.

For us to collectively decide that the consensual, adult use or sale of intoxicants will be criminalized, means we are agreeing that hundreds of thousands of our fellow Americans will experience life-destroying calamity. These POWs will be ripped from their communities -- and frequently from their children -- for years, decades and for life, pursuant to mandatory sentencing schemes as Draconian as those in any dictatorship; how else to characterize putting, e.g., non-violent, vegetarian 23-year-olds in prison for life for selling LSD at Grateful Dead concerts? (It is some small measure of progress that in New York, they recently did away with the life sentences for drug offenders.)

Instead of being with their families, these citizens will be confined among a population teeming with violent predators, under harsh and terrifying conditions. Conditions in which, especially for the disabled, their health often cannot be maintained, as this shameful example shows, as does the case of Lillie Blevins, a non-violent woman who died while serving her life sentence for conspiracy to sell crack cocaine.

As bad as the wretched attention to health, if not worse, is the fact that in many prisons drug-offender “criminals” cannot be (or are not) meaningfully protected from rape and assault. And the drug war is directly feeding prison rapes.

Read the whole thing. The War on Drugs (cited by Ronald Reagan as one of the greatest achievements of his administration) has cost us dearly. There's all the federal money that's ended up enriching drug dealers and their financiers, as well as the shattered lives of nonviolent drug offenders. A sensible drug policy would be so ... sensible. Will it ever happen? In the land of Reefer Madness, that's doubtful.

A Crack in the Gitmo Wall

Judge Orders Release of Gitmo Detainee IDs

EW YORK -- A federal judge ruled Monday that the Defense Department must release the identities of hundreds of Guantanamo Bay detainees to The Associated Press.

U.S. District Judge Jed S. Rakoff told the government to provide the information in the form of unredacted copies of transcripts and documents related to 558 military hearings in which detainees were permitted to challenge their incarcerations.

Most of the hundreds of prisoners at the U.S. prison in Cuba have been held since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks without being charged or publicly identified, which has troubled human rights groups.

American concentration camp. Take down that wall, Mr. Bush.

Once Again: Is This My Country?

From the Denver Post, the story of one of the "shelters" run by FEMA.

Evacuees' stories are moving, but fence isn't

If I didn't know better, I'd have thought I was peering through the fence at a concentration camp.

The signs on the buildings say "Community College of Aurora," though for now they're serving as an impromptu Camp Katrina. About 160 hurricane survivors are being housed in the dorms, surrounded by fences, roadblocks, security guards and enough armed police officers to invade Grenada.

There's a credentials unit to process every visitor, an intake unit to provide identification tags and a bag of clothes to every evacuee, several Salvation Army food stations, portable toilets, shuttle buses, a green army-tent chapel with church services three times a day and a communications team to keep reporters as far away from actual news as possible.

It probably was easier for a reporter to get inside Gitmo on Tuesday than to penetrate the force field around Lowry.

Gitmo a Gulag, 4-Ever, 4-Ever, 4-Ever

Guantanamo inmates can be held 'in perpetuity'- US

At a U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Republican Chairman Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania said Congress should help to define the legal rights of the inmates at the prison, which the panel's top Democrat called "an international embarrassment."

Delaware Democratic Sen. Joseph Biden asked Deputy Associate Attorney General J. Michael Wiggins whether the Justice Department had "defined when there is the end of conflict."

"No, sir," Wiggins responded.

"If there is no definition as to when the conflict ends, that means forever, forever, forever these folks get held at Guantanamo Bay," Biden said.

"It's our position that, legally, they can be held in perpetuity," Wiggins said.

And to hell with the Constitution.

Wiggins, our Justice Department lawyer? Appointed to the position of Deputy Associate Attorney General in the Office of the Associate Attorney General (OASG) by none other than Robert D. McCallum, Jr., the Associate Attorney General/R.J. Reynolds lawyer who ordered the lawyers handling the tobacco case to reduce the penalty requested from $130 billion to $10 billion. One of Mr. Wiggin's former firm's clients: R.J. Reynolds. Doesn't it make you feel better that R.J. Reynolds, one of the most notorious corporate criminals of our time, has placed its former legal mouthpieces in the Justice Department?

Carpe diem, indeed.