Have you read the torture memos?

[Winstonm]

Obama is not getting high marks on civil liberties:

The Obama administration is asking the Supreme Court to overrule long-standing law that stops police from initiating questions unless a defendant's lawyer is present, another stark example of the White House seeking to limit rather than expand rights.

 

The case at issue is Michigan v. Jackson, in which the Supreme Court said in 1986 that police may not initiate questioning of a defendant who has a lawyer or has asked for one, unless the attorney is present. The decision applies even to defendants who agree to talk to the authorities without their lawyers.

 

Since taking office, Obama has drawn criticism for backing the continued imprisonment of enemy combatants in Afghanistan without trial, invoking the "state secrets" privilege to avoid releasing information in lawsuits and limiting the rights of prisoners to test genetic evidence used to convict them.

[Winstonm]

There is very slowly and very subtly an awakening to the real possibility that the U.S. decision to use torture after 9-11 was not simply the mistake of over-zealous-protectiveness made by well-intentioned men to try to get the truth out of terrorists and prevent another attack. It is now dawning on some that the real purpose may have been to get propaganda to justify wars that were already planned.

 

http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-3665-Bo...e-in-good-faith

 

But the truth is that torture tactics have never been used by governments to get truth.  Torture is never conducted in good faith.  Torture is used by corrupt governments and brutal leaders to justify the unjustifiable.  It has always been so.  Governments use torture not to extract truth but to generate lies they then use to justify their own power or a particular policy or plan they wish to undertake.  Torture is used by governments to terrorize.  In fact- governments find it preferable to torture innocent people as that only adds to the torture's effectiveness as a terror tactic.

 

Torture is used by governments to get people to admit to things they didn’t do.  That is why torture is used.  Stalin used torture for this reason.  Hitler used torture for this reason.  The North Vietnamese used torture for this reason.  Saddam Hussein used torture for this reason.  The inquisition used torture for this reason.  Every government on Earth that has ever used torture as a matter of systematic policy has done so in bad faith- has done so precisely for the express reason to get people to admit to things they didn’t do so a particular evil or nefarious course of action by the government could then be justified

[jdonn]

Obama is not getting high marks on civil liberties:

The Obama administration is asking the Supreme Court to overrule long-standing law that stops police from initiating questions unless a defendant's lawyer is present, another stark example of the White House seeking to limit rather than expand rights.

 

The case at issue is Michigan v. Jackson, in which the Supreme Court said in 1986 that police may not initiate questioning of a defendant who has a lawyer or has asked for one, unless the attorney is present. The decision applies even to defendants who agree to talk to the authorities without their lawyers.

 

Since taking office, Obama has drawn criticism for backing the continued imprisonment of enemy combatants in Afghanistan without trial, invoking the "state secrets" privilege to avoid releasing information in lawsuits and limiting the rights of prisoners to test genetic evidence used to convict them.

Isn't allowing defendants who agree to talk to authorities without their lawyer to do so an expansion of rights, not a limitation?

[Winstonm]

Isn't allowing defendants who agree to talk to authorities without their lawyer to do so an expansion of rights, not a limitation?

 

Nice try but swing and a miss! ;) However, with your ability to spin if you ever want I bet you could get a job with Fox News.

 

overrule long-standing law that stops police from initiating questions unless a defendant's lawyer is present

 

Crux of what the administration is asking for: I ask for a lawyer - the police can still question me without the lawyer present.

 

That isn't an increase in personal rights.

[blackshoe]

If the police question you without your lawyer present, can you refuse to answer?

[Winstonm]

If the police question you without your lawyer present, can you refuse to answer?

Is that relevant?

[blackshoe]

I don't know, that's why I'm asking.

[Winstonm]

I don't know, that's why I'm asking.

It is a seperate question. If questioning is not allowed, then no choice of answer or not answer has to be made. The entire purpose of disallowing questioning until a lawyer is present is to preserve the rights of the accused - which for a nation built on the rule of law and with a premise that accused are innocent until proven guilty seems a no-brainer to observe.

[PassedOut]

I haven't formed a solid enough opinion of my own to want to persuade others on this particular topic.

 

My own inclination is that "Does it work?" is not a relevant big picture question, i.e. the end does not justify the means. However, particularly as weapons technology improves, I'm not completely certain about that.

 

I think these are all interesting and relevant questions, and that certainly one doesn't have to be right-wing or idiotic to raise the questions. As Alan Dershowitz has demonstrated.

Do you often give a lot of weight to the views expressed by Alan Dershowitz?

[Winstonm]

I haven't formed a solid enough opinion of my own to want to persuade others on this particular topic. 

 

My own inclination is that "Does it work?" is not a relevant big picture question, i.e. the end does not justify the means.  However, particularly as weapons technology improves, I'm not completely certain about that.

 

I think these are all interesting and relevant questions, and that certainly one doesn't have to be right-wing or idiotic to raise the questions.  As Alan Dershowitz has demonstrated.

Do you often give a lot of weight to the views expressed by Alan Dershowitz?

Alan M. Dershowitz is the Felix Frankfurter professor of law at Harvard Law School. His latest book is "The Case Against Israel's Enemies: Exposing Jimmy Carter and Others Who Stand in the Way of Peace."

 

I always knew it was that warmonger Jimmy Carter's fault!

[hrothgar]

I haven't formed a solid enough opinion of my own to want to persuade others on this particular topic. 

 

My own inclination is that "Does it work?" is not a relevant big picture question, i.e. the end does not justify the means.  However, particularly as weapons technology improves, I'm not completely certain about that.

 

I think these are all interesting and relevant questions, and that certainly one doesn't have to be right-wing or idiotic to raise the questions.  As Alan Dershowitz has demonstrated.

Do you often give a lot of weight to the views expressed by Alan Dershowitz?

Most certainly not on any topic involving Arabs or Israel...

[Lobowolf]

I haven't formed a solid enough opinion of my own to want to persuade others on this particular topic. 

 

My own inclination is that "Does it work?" is not a relevant big picture question, i.e. the end does not justify the means.  However, particularly as weapons technology improves, I'm not completely certain about that.

 

I think these are all interesting and relevant questions, and that certainly one doesn't have to be right-wing or idiotic to raise the questions.  As Alan Dershowitz has demonstrated.

Do you often give a lot of weight to the views expressed by Alan Dershowitz?

Passed-

 

Not particularly, but I think if you'll review my recent posts on the thread, that's not the point. He's not an idiot, and he's not a parroter of right-wing talking points. That's all.

 

Your answer to my question was that it's irrelevant to your belief whether or not waterboarding works, and that's my tentative answer, too. I bring up Dershowitz not because I agree with his answers, but as example of an intelligent, non-conservative type who thinks the question is worth considering.

[mike777]

entire culture of the CIA and NSA seems to be one of breaking the laws of nations and dealing with the scum of the earth, all because the ends justify the means

 

Exactly who is it again that is the scum of the earth?

 

 

The CIA deals with warlords(killers) druglords, traitors, thieves...etc.....if the means help them to their ends. Not sure why people are shocked if you turn people over to the CIA and they get slapped around and thrown into walls, deprived of a good night's sleep and attacked by insects. That is the culture of the CIA...they kill and help others kill people, overthrow nations, wiretap, steal, etc....

 

Are people shocked to know the CIA has killed people, the CIA has given money, guns, ammo and training for others to kill? BTW there are numerous books out about Afghanistan which details this stuff.

 

On the one hand Congress has given tens of Billions to the CIA over the decades, leaders get full secret briefs and then they acted shocked...sigh....:) CUt the money off or change the culture or their mision but please enough fake outrage by Congress and those in the know....

 

Next people will be shocked, shocked that the NSA wiretaps millions of communications offshore/oversees/ in space and under the oceans all without a warrant.

 

As I said it is time for the left wing to step up and starting running the NSA, DIA, Defense Dept, CIA, etc...

[Winstonm]

As I said it is time for the left wing to step up and starting running the NSA, DIA, Defense Dept, CIA, etc...

 

I am unclear as to your reasons for implying this is simply a left-wing versus right-wing debate. The rule of law applies equally and to all, else there is no rule of law.

 

 

The debate as I see it is as old as the nation itself - a powerful central government or a weak central government.

 

That is the culture of the CIA...they kill and help others kill people, overthrow nations, wiretap, steal, etc....

 

That is only a part of the CIA - the valuable mainstay of the CIA is intelligence gathering. When the CIA acts as the secret police of the President there is a problem, Houston.

[y66]

Excerpt from Sunday NYT story Interrogation Debate Sharply Divided Bush White House by Mark Mazzetti and Scott Shane

Most news accounts of the C.I.A. program have focused on how it was approved and operated. This is the story of its unraveling, based on interviews with more than a dozen former Bush administration officials. They insisted on anonymity because they feared being enmeshed in future investigations or public controversy, but they shed new light on the battle about the C.I.A. methods that grew passionate in Mr. Bush’s second term.

 

The consensus of top administration officials about the C.I.A. interrogation program, which they had approved without debate or dissent in 2002, began to fall apart the next year.

 

Acutely aware that the agency would be blamed if the policies lost political support, nervous C.I.A. officials began to curb its practices much earlier than most Americans know: no one was waterboarded after March 2003, and coercive interrogation methods were shelved altogether in 2005.

 

Yet even as interrogation methods were scaled back, former officials now say, the battle inside the Bush administration over which ones should be permitted only grew hotter. There would be a tense phone call over the program’s future during the 2005 Christmas holidays from Stephen J. Hadley, the national security adviser, to Porter J. Goss, the C.I.A. director; a White House showdown the next year between Ms. Rice and Vice President Dick Cheney; and Ms. Rice’s refusal in 2007 to endorse the executive order with which Mr. Bush sought to revive the C.I.A. program.

 

The real trouble began on May 7, 2004, the day the C.I.A. inspector general, John L. Helgerson, completed a devastating report. In thousands of pages, it challenged the legality of some interrogation methods, found that interrogators were exceeding the rules imposed by the Justice Department and questioned the effectiveness of the entire program.

 

C.I.A. officials had sold the interrogation program to the White House. Now, the director of central intelligence, George J. Tenet, knew that the inspector general’s report could be a noose for White House officials to hang the C.I.A.

[y66]

Andrew Sullivan posted this excerpt from David Waldman's rcent blog post on the Daily Dish today:

As tiresome as it can sometimes be to see people frame matters so that it all comes down to one issue and one issue only, I find myself returning to this one again and again. Whether or not torture is your issue. Or wiretapping. Or indefinite detention. Or signing statements. Or anything, really -- environment, global warming, abortion, health care, taxes, terrorism, the war. No matter what your issue is, at heart, you're dependent on a continuing and consistent respect for the law. Because without it, none of your work on politics and policy is worth anything the moment the White House falls to someone who's not you. You can pass all the environmental laws you like, but if it's accepted as a legitimate tenet of Republican governing philosophy that all of those laws can be safely ignored or otherwise set aside, you'll have gained nothing from your work with a friendly Congress and administration.

 

And if you can set aside all statutory and constitutional law on something like torture, I'm unsure what barriers you think remain in the way of doing the same on any other issue.

[PassedOut]

Breaking the law should definitely be illegal.