With the health care debate preoccupying the mainstream media, it has gone virtually unreported that the Barack Obama administration is quietly supporting renewal of provisions of the George W. Bush-era USA Patriot Act that civil libertarians say infringe on basic freedoms.
And it is reportedly doing so over the objections of some prominent Democrats.
When a panicky Congress passed the act 45 days after the terrorist attacks of Sep. 11, 2001, three contentious parts of the law were scheduled to expire at the end of next month, and opponents of these sections have been pushing Congress to substitute new provisions with substantially strengthened civil liberties protections.
But with the apparent approval of the Obama White House and a number of Republicans — and over the objections of liberal Senate Democrats including Russ Feingold of Wisconsin and Dick Durbin of Illinois — the Senate Judiciary Committee has voted to extend the three provisions with only minor changes. Read the rest of this entry »
On Thursday, we noted that while Pakistan has receded from the headlines, the situation in the country is far from settled. Fighting continues between the Pakistani military and the insurgency with millions displaced. Asia Times Online continues to provide some of the best coverage of the situation, with Syed Saleem Shahzad posting this article:
Pakistan fights for its tribal soul
KARACHI – Pakistan’s month-long military operation in the Malakand Division of North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), which includes the scene of especially heavy fighting in the Swat Valley, has, per official figures, cost the lives of over 1,300 militants and led to the displacement of 3.5 million civilians.
Ironically, as President Obama was trying to tuck away any more photographs revealing the US Government’s torture of detainees, former Bush Administration official Philip Zelikow was dissecting the legal and political cover for “enhanced interrogations” in testimony to a Senate committee. He reiterated that the techniques was approved at the highest levels of the Bush White House, including by his immediate boss, Condoleezza Rice, and that his memorandum objecting to the torture (still classified by the US Government) was blocked by other Bush officials. And he offered this pertinent point: if the torture methods were considered legal in their application against “foreign” detainees, then they would also be legal in application against US citizens.
C-SPAN has decided to charge $60 for the videos of the hearings before the Senate committee, which also included testimony by Ali Soufan (posted in a separate entry), the FBI agent who questioned 9-11 planner Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. So we offer two videos — a summary of the Soufan and Zelikow testimonies and Zelikow’s interview with Rachel Maddow — and the transcript of Zelkow’s statement:
Testifying behind a screen, former FBI agent Ali Soufan told a Senate hearing yesterday about the damage caused by the Bush Administration’s “enhanced interrogations”. Soufan was one of the first agents to question Al Qa’eda operative Abu Zubaydah, and by “connecting” with the detainee, he learned the identity of 9/11 planner Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Shortly afterwards, CIA operatives took over the question, applying techniques including waterboarding. Abu Zubaydah, mentally and physically broken, offered little from that point.
Soufan’s testimony can be read next to his opinion piece, published last month, in The New York Times.
Mr. Chairman, Committee members, thank you for inviting me to appear before you today. I know that each one of you cares deeply about our nation’s security. It was always a comfort to me during the most dangerous of situations that I faced, from going undercover as an al Qaeda operative, to unraveling terrorist cells, to tracking down the killers of the 17 U.S. sailors murdered in the USS Cole bombing, that those of us on the frontline had your support and the backing of the American people. So I thank you.
The issue that I am here to discuss today – interrogation methods used to question terrorists – is not, and should not be, a partisan matter. We all share a commitment to using the best interrogation method possible that serves our national security interests and fits squarely within the framework of our nation’s principles. Read the rest of this entry »
You could be forgiven for thinking, amidst the deluge of revelations on the Bush Administration’s authorisation of torture, that we only learned about the existence of “enhanced interrogation” recently.
Actually, despite the secrecy of the Bushmen as they expanded (and rationalised) Executive power to pursue “enhanced interrogation”, it was with us all along.
FBI and Justice Department investigators are increasingly frustrated by the silence of jailed suspected associates of Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda network, and some are beginning to that say that traditional civil liberties may have to be cast aside if they are to extract information about the Sept. 11 attacks and terrorist plans.
From William Fisher of IPS News via AlterNet:
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Testifying behind a screen, former FBI agent Ali Soufan told a Senate hearing yesterday about the damage caused by the Bush Administration’s “enhanced interrogations”. Soufan was one of the first agents to question Al Qa’eda operative Abu Zubaydah, and by “connecting” with the detainee, he learned the identity of 9/11 planner Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Shortly afterwards, CIA operatives took over the question, applying techniques including waterboarding. Abu Zubaydah, mentally and physically broken, offered little from that point.
You could be forgiven for thinking, amidst the deluge of revelations on the Bush Administration’s authorisation of torture, that we only learned about the existence of “enhanced interrogation” recently.
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