http://www.infoshop.org/inews/stories.php?story=04/06/07/0988582
http://www.suntimes.com/output/iraq/cst-nws-abuse09.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A26602-2004Jun8.html
Now the good bits from Ashcroft's testimony:
Patrick Leahy rips him a second asshole:
Ouch!
I usually don't post threads on American politics, but this is just too funny to pass up. Watching this weasel being cornered is just priceless.
Cliffs notes for the lazy
----------------------
-Memo emerges that suggests president can essentially bypass international treaties on torture at will. It also defines the list of tortures that are considered "acceptable".
- Memo also includes suggested legal loopholes and public justifications to be used should anyone get caught torturing people. (which are the ones they have used, coincidentally...)
-Congress rips into Ashcroft like a tablesaw though soft margarine for not releasing the memo to congress.
-Ashcroft tries pathetically weasel his way out of answering any questions or releasing memo. Provides non answers and blatant evasion.
-Senators call him on it.
-Congress looks like it is going to hold him in contempt.
Pentagon Report Set Framework For Use of Torture
Security or Legal Factors Could Trump Restrictions, Memo to Rumsfeld Argued
Bush administration lawyers contended last year that the president wasn't bound by laws prohibiting torture and that government agents who might torture prisoners at his direction couldn't be prosecuted by the Justice Department.
The advice was part of a classified report on interrogation methods prepared for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld after commanders at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, complained in late 2002 that with conventional methods they weren't getting enough information from prisoners.
...
The report seemed "designed to find the legal loopholes that will permit the use of torture against detainees," said Mary Ellen O'Connell, an international-law professor at the Ohio State University who has seen the report. "CIA operatives will think they are covered because they are not going to face liability."
http://www.suntimes.com/output/iraq/cst-nws-abuse09.html
Ashcroft won't release memos on torture
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A26602-2004Jun8.html
Legalizing Torture
THE BUSH administration assures the country, and the world, that it is complying with U.S. and international laws banning torture and maltreatment of prisoners. But, breaking with a practice of openness that had lasted for decades, it has classified as secret and refused to disclose the techniques of interrogation it is using on foreign detainees at U.S. prisons at Guantanamo Bay and in Afghanistan and Iraq. This is a matter of grave concern because the use of some of the methods that have been reported in the press is regarded by independent experts as well as some of the Pentagon's legal professionals as illegal. The administration has responded that its civilian lawyers have certified its methods as proper -- but it has refused to disclose, or even provide to Congress, the justifying opinions and memos.
Now the good bits from Ashcroft's testimony:
Patrick Leahy rips him a second asshole:
Mr. Attorney General, welcome. It's been, I believe, about 15 months to pass since your last very brief appearance in March last year. Your testimony here comes today about 1,000 days after the September 11th attacks, and the subsequent launch of your efforts against terrorism.
As National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice acknowledged in her testimony before the 9/11 commission, the terrorist threat to our nation did not begin in September 2001. But the preliminary findings of the 9/11 commission suggest that counterterrorism simply was not a priority of your Justice Department prior to September 11th.
Problems ranged in your department from an understaffed foreign translation program, woefully inadequate information systems, cultural attitudes that frustrated information sharing across agencies. Just one day before the attacks, on September 10th, you rejected the FBIs request to include more money for counterterrorism in your budget proposal.
And while you have recently been critical of the so-called wall between criminal investigators and intelligence agencies, you did nothing to lower it during your first seven full months in office.
In fact, you put up exactly the same wall in your administration.
The president is fond of saying that September 11th changed everything, as if to wipe out all missteps and misplaced priorities of the first year of this administration. After the attacks, you promised a stunned nation that its government would expend every effort and devote all necessary resources to bring the people responsible for these crimes to justice. Certainly the American people would expect no less.
So a thousand days later and it is time to ask for the fulfillment of the promise you made.
Mr. Attorney General, your statement lists accomplishments of the Department of Justice since 9/11, but you leave out a number of things.
For example, of course the obvious, Osama bin Laden remains at large.
At least three senior Al Qaida operatives who helped plan the 9/11 attacks are in U.S. custody, but there has been no attempt to bring them to justice.
The Moussaoui prosecution has bogged down before any trial.
A German court acquitted two 9/11 co-conspirators, in part because the U.S. government and Justice Department and others refused to provide evidence to them.
Three defendants who you said had knowledge of the 9/11 attacks did not have such knowledge. The department retracted your statement and then you had to apologize to the court because you violated a gag order in the case.
The man you claimed was about to explode a dirty bomb in the U.S. had no such intention or capability, and because he's been held for two years without access to counsel, any crimes he did commit might never be prosecuted.
Terrorist attacks on Capitol Hill and elsewhere involving the deadly bioterror agent anthrax have yet to be solved, and the department is defending itself in a civil rights action brought by a man who you probably identified as a person of interest in the anthrax investigation.
U.S. citizens with no connection to terrorism have been in prison as material witnesses for chunks of time, and then, "Oops, I'm sorry," when what the Justice Department announced was a 100 percent positive fingerprint match turned out to be 100 percent wrong.
Non-citizens with no connection to terrorism have been rounded up seemingly on the basis of their religion or ethnicity, held for months without charges, and in some cases physically abused.
Interrogation techniques approved by the Department of Justice have led to abuses that have tarnished our nation's reputation and driven hundreds, if not thousands, of new recruits to our enemies to terrorism.
Your department turned a Canadian citizen over to Syria to be tortured. And then your department deported another individual to Syria over the objection of experienced prosecutors and agents who thought he was a terrorist and wanted to prosecute him.
And one of the most amazing things, your department, under your direction, has worked to deny compensation to American victims of terrorism, including former POWs tortured by Saddam Hussein's regime. You have tried to stop former POWs tortured by Saddam Hussein -- Americans -- you tried to stop them from getting compensation.
And documents have been classified, unclassified, reclassified, to score political points rather than for legitimate national security reasons.
Statistics have been manipulated to exaggerate the department's success in fighting terrorism. The threat of another attack on U.S. soil remains high, although how high depends primarily on who within the administration is talking.
Mr. Attorney General, you spent much of the past two years increasing secrecy, lessening accountability and touting the government's intelligence-gathering powers.
The threshold issue, of course, is -- and I believe you would agree with me on this -- what good is having intelligence if we can't use it intelligently. Identifying suspected terrorist is only a first step. To be safer we have to follow through.
Instead of declining tough prosecutions, we need to bring the people who are seeking to harm us to justice. That's how our system works. Instead, your practices seem to be built on secret detentions and overblown press releases.
Our country is made no safer through the self-congratulatory press conferences when we're facing serious security threats.
The government agency that bears the name of justice has yet to deliver the justice for the victims of the worst mass murder in this nation's history.
The 9/11 commission is working hard to answer important questions about the attacks and how the vulnerabilities in our system that allowed them to occur, but it can't mete out justice to those involved. Neither the 9/11 commission nor this committee can do the work of your Department of Justice.
Mr. Attorney General, since September 11th, you blamed former administration officials for intelligence failures that happened on your watch. You've used a tar brush to attack the patriotism of the Americans who dared to express legitimate concerns about constitutional freedoms. You refused to acknowledge serious problems, even after the Justice Department's own inspector general exposed widespread violations of the civil liberties of immigrants caught up in your post-September 11th dragnets.
Secretary Rumsfeld recently went before the Armed Services Committee to say that he, he Secretary Rumsfeld, should be held responsible for the abuses of Iraqi prisoners on his watch.
Director Tenet is resigning from the Central Intelligence Agency. Richard Clark went before the 9/11 commission and began with his admission of the failure that this administration bears for the tragedy that consumed us on 9/11.
And I'm reminded this week, as we mourn the passing of President Reagan, that one of the acts for which he will be remembered is that he conceded, that while his heart told him that the weapons for hostages and unlawful funding of insurgent forces in Nicaragua should not have been acts of his administration, his head convinced him that they were, and he took personal responsibility.
We need checks and balances. As much as gone wrong that you stubbornly refuse to admit. For this democratic republic to work, we need openness and accountability.
Now, Mr. Attorney General, your style is often to come to attack. You came before this committee shortly after 9/11 to question our patriotism when we sought to conduct a congressional oversight and ask questions.
You went before the 9/11 commission to attack a commissioner by brandishing a conveniently declassified memo and so unfairly slanted a presentation that President Bush himself disavowed your actions.
So I challenge you today to abandon any such plans for the session. Begin it instead by doing that which you have yet to do: talk plainly with us and with the American people, about not only what's going right in the war on terrorism -- and there are those things that are going right -- but also about the growing list of things that are going wrong, so we can work together to fix them.
Let's get about the business of working together to do our job, a better job of protecting the American people and making sure that the wrongdoers are brought to justice, are brought to trial and are given the justice that this country can mete out.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Ouch!
LEAHY: I would assume that you would carry out your responsibilities; you swore a solemn oath to do so. But does your answer mean that there has or has not been any order directed from the president with respect to interrogation of detainees, prisoners or combatants?
ASHCROFT: The president of the United States has not ordered any activity which would contradict the laws enacted by this Congress or previous Congresses...
LEAHY: Not quite my...
ASHCROFT: ... or the Constitution of the United States...
LEAHY: Mr. Attorney General, that was not my question.
(CROSSTALK)
ASHCROFT: ... or any of the treaties.
LEAHY: That was not my question.
Has there been any order directed from the president with respect to interrogation of detainees, prisoners or combatants, yes or no?
ASHCROFT: I'm not in a position to answer that question.
LEAHY: Does that mean because you don't know or you don't want to answer? I don't understand.
ASHCROFT: The answer to that question is yes.
LEAHY: You don't know whether he's issued such an order?
ASHCROFT: For me to comment on what I advise the president...
LEAHY: I'm not asking...
ASHCROFT: ... what the president's activity is is inappropriate if -- I will just say this: that he has made no order that would require or direct the violation of any law of the United States enacted by the Congress, or any treaty to which the United States is a party as ratified by the Congress, or the Constitution of the United States.
LEAHY: Well, it doesn't answer my question. But I think my time is up. We'll come back later.
KENNEDY: Just, General, has the president authorized you to invoke the executive privilege today on these documents?
ASHCROFT: I am not going to reveal discussions, whether I've had them or not had them, with the president. He asked me to deal with him as a matter of confidence.
I have not invoked executive privilege today. I have explained to you why I'm not turning over the documents.
KENNEDY: Well, what are you invoking?
ASHCROFT: I have not invoked anything. I have just explained to you why I'm not turning over the documents.
BIDEN: Thank you very much.
Well, General, that means you may be in contempt of Congress then. You got to have a reason not to answer our questions, as you know from you sitting up here. There may be a rationale for executive privilege that misses the point, but, you know, you have to have a reason. You are not allowed, under our Constitution, not to answer our questions, and that ain't constitutional.
But that's a different question. I don't want to get off on it, because I have to talk about other things. But you all better come up with a good rationale, because otherwise it's contempt of Congress.
Owned.DURBIN: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Attorney General, thank you for being here.
I don't believe what we've seen today is a routine Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. I think a lot of people are following this hearing around the world. And they're asking hard questions of us and our government, particularly after Abu Ghraib.
And I think the questions that are being asked is whether or not something has changed in America, whether some of our time-honored commitments have become a casualty of the war against terrorism.
The president and virtually every leader in Congress has assured them that it does not; that we still stand by the same values and principles that we always have.
But today, Mr. Attorney General, you quote former Justice Murphy and tell us a nation at war is bound by different rules, rules that limit disclosure, rules that expand the powers of the government and rules that change time-honored standards.
Notwithstanding the wisdom of Mr. Murphy -- Justice Murphy -- I think the Supreme Court, in ex parte Milligan, should be our guide.
In commenting on the suspension of habeas corpus by President Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War, and this is what the court said, "The Constitution of the United States is a law for rulers and people equally in war and in peace, and covers with the shield of its protection all classes of men at all times under all circumstances.
"No doctrine involving more pernicious consequences was ever invited by the wit of man than that any of its provisions can be suspended during any of the great exigencies of government. Such a doctrine leads directly to anarchy or despotism."
Mr. Attorney General, you've said you won't disclose these memos -- and I'll get to the point in a moment -- but I can tell you, frankly, contents of the memos have already been disclosed for the world to see.
And the contents of the memos call into question your statement that it's not your job or the job of this administration to define torture.
DURBIN: Here is a memo by your assistant attorney general, Jay Bybee, quoted in this morning's paper, which defines torture as, quote, "must be equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function or even death."
Another memo which you will not disclose, but has been leaked, and is quoted this morning, talks about seven techniques that the courts have considered torture.
The memo goes on to say, "While we cannot say with certainty that the acts falling short of these seven would not constitute torture, we believe that interrogation techniques would have to be similar to these in their extreme nature and in the type of harm caused to violate law."
Mr. Attorney General, if that isn't a definition of torture, coming straight out of your department, by the people who answer to you, what is it?
And here's the problem we have. You have said that you're not claiming executive privilege; that's for the president to claim. But the law's very clear: you have two options when you say no to this committee: Either the executive claims privilege and refuses to disclose, or you cite a statutory provision whereby Congress has limited its constitutional right to information.
So which is it, Mr. Attorney General? Is it executive privilege, or which statue are you claiming is going to shield you from making this disclosure of these memos at this point?
ASHCROFT: Thank you for your remarks.
First of all, let me agree with you as it relates to the value of the Constitution both at war and at peace. I couldn't agree more heartedly with you that the Constitution is controlling. And I would never suggest that we absent ourselves from a consideration of and adherence to and complete compliance to the Constitution of the United States.
ASHCROFT: And if there is any way in which I have suggested in my remarks today that we wouldn't do that, I want to take this opportunity to make it very clear that the Constitution of the United States is controlling in every circumstance and is never to be disregarded.
(CROSSTALK)
DURBIN: I respect that.
But under which standard are you denying this committee the memos, either executive privilege or a specific statutory authority created by Congress exempting your constitutional responsibility to disclose? Under which are you refusing to disclose these memos?
ASHCROFT: I am refusing to disclose these memos because I believe it is essential to the operation of the executive branch that the president have the opportunity to get information from his attorney general that is confidential and that the responsibility to do that is a function of the executive branch and a necessity that is protected by the doctrine of the separation of powers in the Constitution.
And for that reason -- and that is the reason for which I have not delivered to the Congress or the members of the Senate these memos, any memos.
DURBIN: Sir, Attorney General, with all due respect, your personal belief is not a law, and you are not citing a law and you are not claiming executive privilege. And, frankly, that is what contempt of Congress is all about.
You have to give us a specific legal authority which gives you the right to say no or the president has to claim privilege. And you've done neither.
I think this committee has a responsibility to move forward on this.
HATCH: Are these memos classified?
Is this a sidebar conference on something the attorney general has so authoritatively stated his position on?
ASHCROFT: I'll tell you: This is me getting advice which will remain confidential.
HATCH: Well, I know. But the attorney general has been speaking about these memos so authoritatively that you ought to be able to at least say whether they are classified or not.
ASHCROFT: I have answered your questions. The committee has not made a decision to ask for these memos.
DURBIN: No, but the chairman asked you a specific question. Are there memos classified?
ASHCROFT: Some of these memos may be classified in some ways for some purposes.
ASHCROFT: I don't know. I don't...
DURBIN: Mr. Attorney General, with all due respect, that is a complete evasion. What you have done is refuse to cite a statutory basis for disclosing these memos, refused to claim executive privilege, and now suggest that some parts of these may be classified.
Mr. Chairman, I hope we take this up very seriously because I think it gets to the heart of our relationship. The attorney general is an occasional guest here, and we're glad to have him.
But I think to come here and basically tell us that we cannot see documents from your department on the basis of which you've said this morning is not fair and not consistent with our Constitution.
I usually don't post threads on American politics, but this is just too funny to pass up. Watching this weasel being cornered is just priceless.
Cliffs notes for the lazy
----------------------
-Memo emerges that suggests president can essentially bypass international treaties on torture at will. It also defines the list of tortures that are considered "acceptable".
- Memo also includes suggested legal loopholes and public justifications to be used should anyone get caught torturing people. (which are the ones they have used, coincidentally...)
-Congress rips into Ashcroft like a tablesaw though soft margarine for not releasing the memo to congress.
-Ashcroft tries pathetically weasel his way out of answering any questions or releasing memo. Provides non answers and blatant evasion.
-Senators call him on it.
-Congress looks like it is going to hold him in contempt.
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