This Week In Tyranny
Sunday, December 14, 2008 at 05:45AM No Associated Press content was harmed in the writing of this post
Three items - two from Wired’s Threat Level - that I had queued up last week but overlooked: First, retroactive immunity for the telecoms is getting a look in U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker’s San Francisco courtroom. Right now it is the only faint hope left that we will ever learn about the details of the rampant lawbreaking they engaged in - in the name of doing their “patriotic duty” as defined by the executive branch. And in an extremely disturbing development it appears the Obama administration will be fully supportive of that policy. Not to sound too cynical, but if you were expecting rainbows and butterflies starting January 20th you might be disappointed.
Former Lt. Col. Darrel Vandeveld, a former U.S. prosecutor at Guantanamo, told BBC yesterday in his first interview since resigning earlier this year that Guantanamo detainees were treated in a “wrong, unethical and finally, immoral” manner. Vandeveld was so “appalled” by the conditions at Guantanamo that he consulted his Jesuit priest, who told him to resign. “I never suffered such anguish in my life about anything,” he said.
I wonder how many times we will have to hear this before it sinks in. And just for the record, a single minute of the since-destroyed videotaped interrogations would have brought it home and then some. Reports of it - even sincere and compelling firsthand accounts like Vandeveld’s - are dry, clinical and easy to ignore by comparison. Sadly.
The Wall Street Journal editorial page is still certifiably insane. Which is why I don’t for a moment believe the gossip that Rupert Murdoch doesn’t really, deep in his heart of hearts, enjoy providing a platform for bullies, authoritarians, know-nothings and majestically indifferent greedheads. He’s got the media empire he wants, trust me.
This could be interesting:
The US Supreme Court will hear a case Wednesday on whether cabinet-level officials could be held accountable for controversial tactics President George W. Bush ordered as part of the US-led “war on terror.”
If major players like John Ashcroft and Robert Mueller start to get exposed to criminal sanction we might see the mother of all circular firing squads.
Just for the record, I understand that creeping tyranny is much better than tyranny fully realized. But that shouldn’t be our measuring stick, either.
Torture is bad (sigh). Should. Be. Obvious. Spencer also was the first one to relay this to me, but it deserves a post of its own (and will get it on Thursday). And one of his FDL colleagues tipped me to the Inspector General of the NSA’s proposed investigation into its extensive domestic surveillance programs. That would be, as looseheadprop says, potentially huge.
David Fiderer has a great post about how President Obama could greatly clarify some of the most pressing questions about criminality and malfeasance in the last eight years in 2 easy steps
- Disclose the transcript of Patrick Fitzgerald’s joint interview with George Bush and Dick Cheney.
- Disclose the documents requested by Congress pursuant to investigations into Katrina.
He wouldn’t need anyone’s permission or approval to do so. Will he? Will he take an active approach and prompt these disclosures, or just sit back and acquiesce to requests like this only if they cross his desk? With any luck an obstreperous bureaucracy will help him make up his mind.
The road to the bailout.
UNPACKING JANE: After describing the murder of Manadel al-Jamadi on pages 252-5 Mayer points out on page 258 that in the view of the administration the killing of al-Jamadi broke no laws. Whenever you hear anyone in the administration protest their innocence or otherwise insist they did nothing wrong please keep in mind that their views of legality encompass the entire sequence of events that led to his death.
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