Now that we've dealt with the grotesqueries

[pecunium]

I'll start my arguments with a word from Thomas Paine: He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from opposition; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach himself.How about the more subtle aspects of the White House Torture Bill

Comments

[spacecrab]

Why are newspaper stories, such as this one asserting that "Water boarding presumably no longer would be allowed under the new rules under consideration in the Senate." I've seen several statements like this in newspaper and tv stories over the past few days. Are they basing their reporting on what Lindsey Graham said in last week's press conference? From what you've been documenting, that's a big lie that should be refuted.

[pecunium]

They are being spun.

McCain, in particular, is seen as death on wheels to torture (because of his past) so when he says torture is against the new rules, they believe him.

And the press has been rolling over for the right wing for the past 12 years, at least; why should they rediscover objectivity now?

TK

[anonymous]

It gets worse. Remember what Neimoller said? Well, now that they seems to have dealt with the non-citizens in the war on terror context, there is a movement afoot to dismantle habeas in criminal cases generally. Provisions tacked onto appropriations bills would do things like bar federal courts form hearing sentencing claims.

Ruth Friedman, former senior counsel at the Equal Justice Initiative,testified before a House Subcommitte that "unlike any prior reform or revision, this legislation would strip the federal judiciary of jurisdiction to consider claims of serious constitutional error arising from state court convictions."

I read those words and my mind boggles that Americans can even think about doing this.

[patgreene]

Ack! Forgot to include the link in the previous comment: here it is, from thejusticeproject.org.

(Oh, and that was me commenting. I didn't notice I wasn't logged in.)

[pecunium]

Happens to me too.

More lately, because something is killing my login scripts.

TK

[don_fitch]

It's chilling to realize that things like this are being seriously considered in Congress -- they would never have been even _suggested_ by any responsible person in the United States of America in which I've spent my entire life.

Those Terrorists don't fighten me nearly as much as I was constantly frightened while spending almost eight months within a mile or so of an enemy army in Korea, but even so, they've won. I am now terrified... of my own country's Government.

Then there have been a whole lot of Irresponsible People here

[bellatrys]

in positions of government power and prestige, wealth and public opinion shapers, and among the masses of upper-middle-class college educated professionals and voters. Because the idea that the criminal justice system as it existed is an enabler of crime, that any restraints on police power against "real criminals" and particularly terrorists or foreign enemies like "Charlie", including the power to torture, is touchy-feely bleeding heart liberalism, that Real Men torture the Bad Guys, that the military should always be sent in against rioters (and even used against hippies) and that the Ticking Time Bomb Scenario is gospel - has been mainstream for all my life, a memory dating back to the 1970s. Just like the unquestioning acceptance of the necessity and justiication of civilian slaughter by aerial bombardment, so long as it's being done to People Who Aren't Us, and of genocide so long as it was done by us, or our ancestors, and we profited from it. It wasn't just the self-identified conservatives who accepted all this, and turned a

[tongodeon]

I don't give you nearly the props that I should for the detailed write-ups that you've been doing. I'd like to pimp your blog in general and my post in particular. Do I recall correctly that you're a former interrogator or served in the military in some capacity?

[pecunium]

I am a current interrogator, in the National guard.

Feel free to link.

TK

[tongodeon]

Thanks.

CID or ....

[drieuxster]

Forgive me for picking hairs... Old Bad Habit from debriefings...