Moderators: Alyrium Denryle, Edi, K. A. Pital
Unless they believe that the US government isn't actually doing such an action. Ahh, Brilliant Obama! Brilliant!Sky Captain wrote:Anyway do wiretapping really has potential to uncover terrorist activities because it seems obvious to me a terrorist group planning some sort of attack won`t talk openly about their plans on a phone.
How else will they co-ordinate an actual strike? Yes absolutely you could develop a system of coded messages and have them all hand delivered but then you have a HUGE slowdown in the speed and completeness of the communication. In order to actually have operational instructions flow you need two way communicaiton that works at high speed and this menas telephone, e-mail or web based. All three of those are subject to some intercept the problem for those trying to intercept (and the advantage for those trying to hide things) is that there is an awful lot of data out there to sift through and trying to find coded messages in the midst of all that is tough. So no there aren't going to be conversations where Person A says "go blow up this building" and Person B says "I will on X day" but the neccessity for co-ordination is such that there will need to be some form of communicaiton the trick is figuring out who is talking about plans and who is actually jsut discussing life as it is.Sky Captain wrote:Anyway do wiretapping really has potential to uncover terrorist activities because it seems obvious to me a terrorist group planning some sort of attack won`t talk openly about their plans on a phone.
in-game speech in online games? Skype? Eve-Voice?CmdrWilkens wrote: How else will they co-ordinate an actual strike?
Yes because those are so much more secure...since the data travels over the same damn network that the aforementioned internet and/or phone messages travel. Put bluntly you have two options either fast with a chance of getting cuahgt or slower with physical document security. Neither is perfect and we always have a chance to intercept either way its just a bit harder to do so with a person.Prometheus Unbound wrote:in-game speech in online games? Skype? Eve-Voice?CmdrWilkens wrote: How else will they co-ordinate an actual strike?
Elfdart already posted a paragraph from this article, but he did it in a thread that was almost completely unrelated to it, so I'm posting the whole thing here.Obama fails his first test on civil liberties and accountability -- resoundingly and disgracefully
The Obama DOJ today embraced one of the most abused Bush weapons -- the "state secrets" privilege -- in order to block torture and rendition victims from their day in court
Two weeks ago, I interviewed the ACLU's Ben Wizner, counsel to 5 individuals suing the subsidiary of Boeing (Jeppesen) which had arranged the Bush administration's rendition program, under which those 5 plaintiffs had been abducted, sent to other countries and brutally tortured. Today the Obama administration was required to file with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals its position in this case -- i.e., whether it would continue the Bush administration's abusive reliance on the "state secrets" privilege to prevent courts from ruling on such matters, or whether they would adhere to Obama's previous claims about his beliefs on "state secrets" by withdrawing that position and allowing these victims their day in court.
Yesterday, enthusiastic Obama supporter Andrew Sullivan wrote about this case: "Tomorrow in a federal court hearing in San Francisco, we'll find out if the Obama administration intends to keep the evidence as secret as the Bush administration did." As I wrote after interviewing Wizner two weeks ago: "This is the first real test of the authenticity of Obama's commitment to reverse the abuses of executive power over the last eight years." Today, the Obama administration failed that test -- resoundingly and disgracefully:The ACLU's Wizner said this:Obama Administration Maintains Bush Position on 'Extraordinary Rendition' Lawsuit
The Obama Administration today announced that it would keep the same position as the Bush Administration in the lawsuit Mohamed et al v Jeppesen Dataplan, Inc.
A source inside of the Ninth U.S. District Court tells ABC News that a representative of the Justice Department stood up to say that its position hasn't changed, that new administration stands behind arguments that previous administration made, with no ambiguity at all. The DOJ lawyer said the entire subject matter remains a state secret.
This is not going to please civil libertarians and human rights activists who had hoped the Obama administration would allow the lawsuit to proceed.What makes this particularly appalling and inexcusable is that Senate Democrats had long vehemently opposed the use of the "state secrets" privilege in exactly the way that the Bush administration used it in this case, even sponsoring legislation to limits its use and scope. Yet here is Obama, the very first chance he gets, invoking exactly this doctrine in its most expansive and abusive form to prevent torture victims even from having their day in court, on the ground that national security will be jeopardized if courts examine the Bush administration's rendition and torture programs -- even though (a) the rendition and torture programs have been written about extensively in the public record; (b) numerous other countries have investigated exactly these allegations; and (c) other countries have provided judicial forums in which these same victims could obtain relief. As Wizner said:We are shocked and deeply disappointed that the Justice Department has chosen to continue the Bush administration's practice of dodging judicial scrutiny of extraordinary rendition and torture. This was an opportunity for the new administration to act on its condemnation of torture and rendition, but instead it has chosen to stay the course. Now we must hope that the court will assert its independence by rejecting the government's false claims of state secrets and allowing the victims of torture and rendition their day in court.Despite that, the new President -- who repeatedly condemned the extreme secrecy of the Bush administration and vowed greater transparency -- has now acted to protect, purely on secrecy grounds, the government and company that did this, as Wizner described:For one thing, the idea you alluded to, the facts of this story are absolutely well-known, have been the front pages of the New York Times and Washington Post, are in books, and all of these stories are based on CIA and other government sources, that essentially said, well, in this case we got the wrong guy. So the position of the Bush administration, accepted by conservative judges in that case, really the only place in the world where Khalid El-Masri's case could not be discussed was in a federal courtroom. Everywhere else it could be discussed without harm to the nation, but in a federal court before a federal judge there, all kinds of terrible things could happen.That's what Barack Obama is now shielding from judicial scrutiny. Those are the torture victims he is preventing from obtaining judicial relief in our courts. And he's using one of the most radical and destructive tools in the Bush arsenal -- its wildly expanded version of the "state secrets" privilege -- to accomplish all of that dirty work. I've been as vigorous a proponent as anyone for waiting to see what Obama does before reaching conclusions about his presidency, but this is a very real and substantial act, and it's hard to disagree with what ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero said today:They were essentially the CIA's torture travel agents. They were the one who arranged all the overflight rights for the CIA civilian planes to be able to fly from country to country. They handled the security and the logistics. They filed dummy flight plans to try to trick air traffic controllers into not being able to track where the actual flights were going. And we know they knew what they were doing because we have a witness in our case, someone who's given us a sworn declaration, who was an employee of Jeppesen DataPlan, and who was present when senior officials of the company were openly boasting about their role in the torture flights, and about how much money they made from them because the CIA spared no expense.
We were able, with the help of an investigative journalist and other documentary evidence, to link Jeppesen to an number of very specific CIA rendition flights, involving these five torture victims who were flown to countries like Egypt, Morocco, to CIA sites in Afghanistan and eastern Europe. . . .
[Plaintiff Ahmed Agiza] was picked up off the streets of Stockholm and then he was taken to an airport where a CIA rendition team--this is a bunch of men dressed all in black, with their faces covered--sliced off all of his clothes, put a suppository into him, chained him to the floor of an airplane, flew him to Egypt, where he was exposed to absolutely brutal torture, including shock treatment, all kinds of beatings. He was then given a show trial in an Egyptian military court and sentenced to 15 years for involvement in a banned organization.
His has been an extremely well-documented case; it's been in books by Seymour Hersh and others. The UN has investigated this; the Swedish government has investigated this case.
In fact, just a couple of months ago, the Swedish government agreed to pay Ahmed Agiza $450,000 for its secondary role in the CIA's rendition of Agiza to Egypt. So there's no real secret involved here. Nothing would be revealed by allowing Agiza to go forward in a case against the CIA, because Jeppesen's role is public, because Sweden's role is public, and because Egypt's role is public--he's in an Egyptian prison right now.Secrecy generally, and the state secrets privilege particularly, was the linchpin of the civil liberties abuses and constitutional radicalism of the last eight years. At the end of 2006, Slate's Dahlia Lithwick listed the Bush administration's "10 most outrageous civil liberties violations" and it included this:Eric Holder's Justice Department stood up in court today and said that it would continue the Bush policy of invoking state secrets to hide the reprehensible history of torture, rendition and the most grievous human rights violations committed by the American government. This is not change. This is definitely more of the same. Candidate Obama ran on a platform that would reform the abuse of state secrets, but President Obama's Justice Department has disappointingly reneged on that important civil liberties issue. If this is a harbinger of things to come, it will be a long and arduous road to give us back an America we can be proud of again.That the Obama DOJ -- when faced with its first real test to determine what it intends to do in these areas (as opposed to engaging in symbolic rituals and issuing pretty words) -- explicitly adopts exactly the Bush position is about as inauspicious a start in these areas as one can imagine.6. The State-Secrets Doctrine
The Bush administration's insane argument in court is that judges should dismiss entire lawsuits over many of the outrages detailed on this very list. Why? Because the outrageously illegal things are themselves matters of top-secret national security. The administration has raised this claim in relation to its adventures in secret wiretapping and its fun with extraordinary rendition. A government privilege once used to sidestep civil claims has mushroomed into sweeping immunity for the administration's sometimes criminal behavior.
UPDATE: I just spoke with Wizner about today's court hearing. It's really remarkable what happened. One of the judges on the three-judge panel explicitly asked the DOJ lawyer, Doug Letter, whether the change in administrations had any bearing on the Government's position in this case. Letter emphatically said it did not. Instead, he told the court, the new administration -- the new DOJ -- had actively reviewed this case and vetted the Bush positions and decisively opted to embrace the same positions.
There's no doubt about that. Wizner pointed out that after the interview he did with me 10 days ago, there was substantial press coverage of this matter. Both The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times wrote editorials in the last week demanding that the Obama administration adhere to its prior pledge and abandon the Bush administration's reliance on "state secrets" in this case. Wizner said that reporters calling the DOJ were told that the case was under active review. This was an active, conscious decision made by the Obama DOJ to retain the same abusive, expansive view of "state secrets" as Bush adopted, and to do so for exactly the same purpose: to prevent any judicial accountability of any kind, to keep government behavior outside of and above the rule of law.
Finally, Wizner noted one last fact that is rather remarkable. The entire claim of "state secrets" in this case is based on two sworn Declarations from CIA Director Michael Hayden -- one public and one filed secretly with the court. In them, Hayden argues that courts cannot adjudicate this case because to do so would be to disclose and thus degrade key CIA programs of rendition and interrogation -- the very policies which Obama, in his first week in office, ordered shall no longer exist. How, then, could continuation of this case possibly jeopardize national security when the rendition and interrogation practices which gave rise to these lawsuits are the very ones that the U.S. Government, under the new administration, claims to have banned?
What this is clearly about is shielding the U.S. Government and Bush officials from any accountability. Worse, by keeping Bush's secrecy architecture in place, it ensures that any future President -- Obama or any other -- can continue to operate behind an impenetrable wall of secrecy, with no transparency or accountability even for blatantly criminal acts.
UPDATE II: There wasn't a more enthusiastic Obama supporter during the campaign than Andrew Sullivan. Here is what he wrote just now:There is no viable excuse, or even mitigation, for what they did here.The Obama administration will continue the cover-up of the alleged torture of the British resident. The argument is that revealing the extent of the man's torture and abuse would reveal state secrets. No shit. This is a depressing sign that the Obama administration will protect the Bush-Cheney torture regime from the light of day. And with each decision to cover for their predecessors, the Obamaites become retroactively complicit in them.
So what are they hiding from us? Wouldn't you like to know?
UPDATE III: For those interested, I wrote many times in the past about the origins of the State Secrets Privilege and how the Bush administration's abuse of it (endorsed by the Obama DOJ today) has been so severe and destructive -- see, for instance, here and here. And see this excellent comment from DCLaw1, explaining yet another reason why the Obama administration's decision today is such a substantial setback for the cause of restoring our Constitutional framework.
UPDATE IV: The New York Times' article by John Schwartz on today's hearing contains the quotes from the exchange which I described in the Update above:"Thoroughly vetted with the appropriate officials within the new administration": that's about as explicit as it gets. It will be extremely difficult for even the most loyal Obama followers to deny that this was an active and conscious decision on the part of the Obama DOJ to embrace one of the most extreme abuses of the Bush presidency.[A] lawyer for the government, Douglas N. Letter, made the same state-secrets argument on Monday, startling several judges on the panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
"Is there anything material that has happened" that might have caused the Justice Department to shift its views, asked Judge Mary M. Schroeder, an appointee of President Jimmy Carter, coyly referring to the recent election.
"No, your honor," Mr. Letter replied.
"The change in administration has no bearing?" she asked.
"No, your honor," he said once more. The position he was taking in court on behalf of the government had been "thoroughly vetted with the appropriate officials within the new administration," and "these are the authorized positions," he said.
It isn't merely that the Obama DOJ is invoking the privilege for this particular case, which contains allegations of torture that are as brutal and severe as any. That's bad enough. But worse is that they're invoking the most abusive parts of the Bush theory: namely, that the privilege can be used to block the adjudication of entire cases (rather than, say, justify the concealment of specific classified documents or other pieces of evidence), and, worse still, can be used to prevent judicial scrutiny even when the alleged government conduct is blatantly illegal and, as here, a war crime of the greatest seriousness.
They're embracing a theory that literally places government officials beyond the rule of law. No minimally honest person who criticized the Bush administration for relying on this instrument can defend the Obama administration for doing so here.
What? No, if one side appeals a ruling and the other side refuses to respond, the first side doesn't automatically lose the appeal.SirNitram wrote:I could be wrong on my legal technicalities, but if Obama simply relented now, the lower court's rulings(In favor of Bush's policies) stands and the 9th Circuit is out of the running.
[/joke]
That's what I gathered from reading it. If they just let the 9th circuit's decision stand, then any future administration would be free to challenge it down the road in similar cases. On the other hand by taking it to the top it will be impossible to appeal again should the government lose and the Supreme Court upholds the 9th's ruling on the matter.Solauren wrote:Forgive me if I'm wrong / mistaken / ignorant here...
Wouldn't continuing the handling of the lawsuit as is, and a subsequent defeat, give the Obama administration and the Supreme Court / 9th Circuit all the legal prescident they need to strike down alot of the old Bush administration's policies and laws?
It could be the Obama said let the lawsuit for forth for just that reason.
Or it could be he has more important things to worry about right now....
No, diuretics, antidepressants, and sleep pills.Dominus Atheos wrote:What? No, if one side appeals a ruling and the other side refuses to respond, the first side doesn't automatically lose the appeal.SirNitram wrote:I could be wrong on my legal technicalities, but if Obama simply relented now, the lower court's rulings(In favor of Bush's policies) stands and the 9th Circuit is out of the running.
Are you posting while on pain pills again?
Are you retarded? Are you actually counting on SCOTUS to rule against the State Secrets privilege? Even the farthest left moonbats aren't saying the privilege should be thrown out altogether.General Zod wrote:That's what I gathered from reading it. If they just let the 9th circuit's decision stand, then any future administration would be free to challenge it down the road in similar cases. On the other hand by taking it to the top it will be impossible to appeal again should the government lose and the Supreme Court upholds the 9th's ruling on the matter.Solauren wrote:Forgive me if I'm wrong / mistaken / ignorant here...
Wouldn't continuing the handling of the lawsuit as is, and a subsequent defeat, give the Obama administration and the Supreme Court / 9th Circuit all the legal prescident they need to strike down alot of the old Bush administration's policies and laws?
It could be the Obama said let the lawsuit for forth for just that reason.
Or it could be he has more important things to worry about right now....
Are you illiterate or do you just not grasp that a future administration would still be allowed to challenge the ruling if a similar circumstance came up again if it's left at the 9th Circuit? Why leave the thread dangling if you can nip it in the bud now?Dominus Atheos wrote: Are you retarded? Are you actually counting on SCOTUS to rule against the State Secrets privilege? Even the farthest left moonbats aren't saying the privilege should be thrown out altogether.
The ninth circuit is a federal court and can create all the precedent anyone can ever need. Not that that matters, since even the Ninth Circuit isn't crazy enough to strike down the State Secrets Privilege. If the Obama administration doesn't change it's position, this lawsuit seeking compensation for 5 people who were flown to other countries and tortured (and not just like waterboarding, like bamboo shoots under fingernails and electroshock) will be thrown out.Solauren wrote:Forgive me if I'm wrong / mistaken / ignorant here...
Wouldn't continuing the handling of the lawsuit as is, and a subsequent defeat, give the Obama administration and the Supreme Court / 9th Circuit all the legal prescident they need to strike down alot of the old Bush administration's policies and laws?
Because Obama is never going to be able to "nip it in the bud". No court is ever going to reject the State Secrets privilege, now or at any time in the future, dumbass. If Obama really wanted to prevent future presidents from abusing the privilege he'd demand congress pass this law:General Zod wrote:Are you illiterate or do you just not grasp that a future administration would still be allowed to challenge the ruling if a similar circumstance came up again if it's left at the 9th Circuit? Why leave the thread dangling if you can nip it in the bud now?Dominus Atheos wrote: Are you retarded? Are you actually counting on SCOTUS to rule against the State Secrets privilege? Even the farthest left moonbats aren't saying the privilege should be thrown out altogether.
Your retarded idea of "keep abusing State Secrets privilege until eventually a court gets fed up with it and strikes it down, thus making it so nothing can ever be classified ever again" is crazy, dangerous, and shows that you're just scrambling to apologize for Obama without actually thinking through any of your apologism.Earlier today the Senate Judiciary Committee approved legislation that would scale back the state secrets privilege.
The privilege is a favorite of the Bush administration, which has invoked it in various cases, including challenges to its wiretapping and extraordinary rendition programs.
Known as the State Secrets Protection Act, the bill sets up a set of procedures for federal courts to follow when handling claims of privilege.
Judges are required to look at the evidence the government claims is privileged and not simply rely on affadavits supplied by the government.
The legislation also prevents judges from dismissing cases before the discovery process is complete.
"It's long past time for Congress to address the state secrets privilege," said main sponsor Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass. (pictured). "Congress needs to ensure ... that the courts are adjudicating the privilege properly and not just giving the executive a free pass."
The committee vote was also welcomed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which represents the plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the government's wiretapping program.
One of the organization's attorneys, Kurt Opsahl, said he hoped Congress will rein in what he described as the Bush administration's "abuse of the state secret privilege."
Of course, when Ashcroft says it he means it as a compliment. Idiot.Ashcroft: Only difference between Bush and Obama is how they spell their names.»
In a new article about how the Obama administration will confront the legal challenges of Bush’s war on terror, former Attorney General John Ashcroft defends the continued detention of a terror suspect, Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, on a naval brig in South Carolina. Al-Marri has been held as an “enemy combatant” for more than seven years, though the government has yet to charge him with a crime. Ashcroft told the New Yorker’s Jane Mayer that the only difference between Obama and Bush on detainee policy will likely be how they spell their names:
John Ashcroft, who was Attorney General when Marri was designated an enemy combatant, makes no such apologies. Interviewed just before the Inauguration, he defended what he described as a “sound decision” to “maximize the national interest,” and predicted that, in the end, President Obama’s approach to handling terror suspects would closely mirror his own: “How will he be different? The main difference is going to be that he spells his name ‘O-b-a-m-a,’ not ‘B-u-s-h.’ ”
I'm not agreeing with him, I'm just pointing out the irony. Obama at least stopped torture and renditions, which are probably the most important things. Although he did continue Bush's threat's to stop sharing intelligence with Britain if they released evidence that people were tortured.The Romulan Republic wrote:Ok, its official: you're a wanker.
Look, its one thing to say that Obama is letting us down by not doing everything we'd hoped he would. But to say that their's no difference between him and Bush-as trendy as that cliche may be these days-is idiotic.
Oh, and Ashcroft sure is a reliable source.
So there is some difference, but when it comes to applying the rule of law equally and cowboy style foreign policy, there could stand to be more.Mr Miliband said confidentiality was key to intelligence sharing, a view later backed by the White House.
In a statement, the (Obama) White House said it "thanked the UK government for its continued commitment to protect sensitive national security information".
It added that this would "preserve the long-standing intelligence sharing relationship that enables both countries to protect their citizens".
Ok, fair enough. However, your choice of words ("John Ashcroft tells it like it is") made it sound like you agreed with him.Dominus Atheos wrote:I'm not agreeing with him, I'm just pointing out the irony. Obama at least stopped torture and renditions, which are probably the most important things. Although he did continue Bush's threat's to stop sharing intelligence with Britain if they released evidence that people were tortured.
So there is some difference, but when it comes to applying the rule of law equally and cowboy style foreign policy, there could stand to be more.[/quote]Mr Miliband said confidentiality was key to intelligence sharing, a view later backed by the White House.
In a statement, the (Obama) White House said it "thanked the UK government for its continued commitment to protect sensitive national security information".
It added that this would "preserve the long-standing intelligence sharing relationship that enables both countries to protect their citizens".
Evidence of how a British resident held in the Guantánamo Bay detention camp was tortured, and what MI5 knew about it, must remain secret because of serious threats the US has made against the UK, the high court ruled today.
The judges made clear they were deeply unhappy with their decision, but said they had no alternative as a result of a statement by David Miliband, the foreign secretary, that if the evidence was disclosed the US would stop sharing intelligence with Britain. That would directly threaten the UK's national security, Miliband had told the court.
Today's ruling comes after the judges last year invited the Guardian and other media groups to question earlier claims by Miliband that the disclosure of evidence, originally contained in documents given to him by the US government, would threaten the UK's national security.
The judges said today that they found it "difficult to conceive" the rationale for the US's objections to releasing the information, which contained "no disclosure of sensitive intelligence matters" about how US officials treated detainees.
"Indeed, we did not consider that a democracy governed by the rule of law would expect a court in another democracy to suppress a summary of the evidence contained in reports by its own officials ... relevant to allegations of torture and cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment, politically embarrassing though it might be," they said.
The judges said they had been taken aback by the severity of the threat made by the US government.
In another part of the ruling, the judges said lawyers for Miliband had told them the threat to withdraw cooperation remained in place under the new administration of President Barack Obama.
Things like that were pretty much par for the course for the Bush Administration, but I was really surprised to hear that Obama continued the threats. I mean, I already realized he was willing to tread all over the rule of law and the Constitution to cover up Bush's war crimes, but I didn't actually think he'd go so far as to sacrifice one of our strongest alliances and a huge part of our national security over it.Edi wrote:Nice of the US to threaten to cut off all intelligence aid to an ally over what they did to a national of said ally. That sort of threats being made public certainly is not going to help restoring any relations any. And two can play that game in retaliation, which would just make both sides less secure.
I was hoping the era of cowboy foreign policy was over and Obama would start rebuilding our alliances, but apparently not.The BBC wrote:Mr Miliband said confidentiality was key to intelligence sharing, a view later backed by the White House.
In a statement, the (Obama) White House said it "thanked the UK government for its continued commitment to protect sensitive national security information".
It added that this would "preserve the long-standing intelligence sharing relationship that enables both countries to protect their citizens".
