Tuesday June 30, 2009, 12:50 pm

Good on you for aggressively promoting this, dear Bengt!

Tuesday June 30, 2009, 2:02 pm
Message sent. Thank you for taking action.

Thank you for speaking out to show the world that we will not allow human rights to be violated with impunity.

Amnesty International is committed to fully investigating U.S. detention and interrogation practices, and holding accountable those responsible for torture.

TY, Ben.

Tuesday June 30, 2009, 2:15 pm
Message sent. (There are quite a few other important letters to send on the Amnesty action page, from the American journalists imprisoned in North Korea to impunity for rape and sexual violence perpetrators in Burundi & writing Homeland Security Janet Napolitano on improving detention conditions for immigrants & refugees to the US -- I've signed them all!)

And while I'm at it, this may be of interest to people who signed this letter:
Among today's headlines on Democracy Now!- "Anti-Torture Activists Seek Disbarment of CIA Lawyers"

"Anti-torture activists are seeking the disbarment of two active CIA lawyers involved in authorizing the Bush administration’s torture of foreign prisoners. On Monday, a coalition of advocacy groups called the Velvet Revolution filed complaints to disbar Jonathan Fredman and John Rizzo. Fredmen is currently counsel for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, while Rizzo is the CIA’s current Acting General Counsel. The same coalition filed similar complaints against twelve former Bush administration attorneys last month."

DISBAR the DIRTY DOZEN, the Bush/Cheney Torture Lawyers - Velvet Revolution Video & Petition

Tuesday June 30, 2009, 2:31 pm
Message sent. Thank you Charles for forwarding! Thank you Ben for posting!

Tuesday June 30, 2009, 5:04 pm
Message sent Thanks Ben Hugs to you. Songbird

Tuesday June 30, 2009, 6:14 pm
Already sent Thanks Ben LOL

Tuesday June 30, 2009, 6:21 pm
Thank you for speaking out. We understand that you are busy, and we appreciate your time and effort.
Amnesty International works worldwide to defend human rights and uphold human dignity.
Noted with a lot of thanks Dearest Ben.
Love,
Black Dalia:)

Tuesday June 30, 2009, 6:49 pm
Action taken. Thanks Ben.

Message sent. Thank you for taking action.

Thank you for speaking out to show the world that we will not allow human rights to be violated with impunity.

Tuesday June 30, 2009, 7:32 pm
Thank you Ben.

Tuesday June 30, 2009, 7:45 pm
Noted, and action taken.

Tuesday June 30, 2009, 8:07 pm
Why on earth would anyone want to free these enemy combatants that want to kill us? These are not American citizens that have been arrested for an offense ..... they are not afforded, nor are they entitled to, the rights and privileges of our laws. Do you think for one minute these enemy combatants are worried about our human rights? Wake up people. Does anyone supporting their release know about the information obtained from some of these people you want to pat on the butt and release them to continue their terrorist activities? Whatever it takes to keep my family safe....that's what I support.

Tuesday June 30, 2009, 8:29 pm
Done! Lets hope that together we will stop this insane attempt at discipline before it moves forward! : )

Wednesday July 1, 2009, 6:08 am
AIUSA has consistently been in front lines to bring accountability, justice, and restore human rights t5o the illegally kidnapped, imprisoned and tortured victims in all the black sites...Gitmo is only one.
AIUSA is trying to bring the US back to being the US for quite some time. WE lost ourselves along a long, twisted, path of fear and manipulation by power mad men. From the BUSH/CHENEY Constitution shredding behavior starting their first day in office, January, 2001, as they picked up the baton from BILLY boy before them, we lost our way. Many of us have been working on the issues since then but we never could get anyone to listen. Clinton's "don't ask, don't tell" policies spread to the CIA action of renditioning that was completely ignored by Congress, the MSM and the people (too busy trying to catch him having affairs). Cheney took renditioning, torture and war crimes to new heights . (how many people know that US Navy ships have been used as floating black sites; or that Britain's MI5 has been involved in a few of them along with the FBI and CIA and US Military at full knowledge of our government from Bush to Obama; or that Poland located one and is currently investigating to bring criminal charges against the US; or that there are still over 100 "known" and possibly many more "unknown" that we have no confirmation that they are not still running - "ordered closed" but are they? No accountability, no follow up, no one allowed to even know exactly where they are..No formal review, inspection....On the single statement of Obama in a speech, we are expected to believe, 'POOF", all gone!. Nothing more has EVER been said.....ACCOUNTABILITY and TRANSPARENCY? NOW THAT is A CRUEL, HUGE JOKE.. The policies on torture are still in place, don't believe for a second they all have been stopped - "a few bad apples" was planned at the highest levels of government early on and that policy is still in promotion). The only place there is any focus is GITMO. Bagram started much earlier and Bagram has been the true flagship for the US torture sites throughout the world , many making Gitmo look "nice" - old prisons, dirt floors. no plumbing, food? questionable...The idea that Gitmo is a resort? Well , in comparison, it is...cleaner, newer and with more attention (like the ICRC has access...they can't get in to most sites), they don't dare do what is done in Bagram....Educate and activate...This MUST END NOW If you want the truth...
http://www.aclu.org/safefree/extraordinaryrendition/22203res20051206.html
http://intelligencenews.wordpress.com/2009/02/02/01-63/
http://ccrjustice.org/illegal-detentions-and-guantanamo
http://ccrjustice.org/current-cases
http://humanrights.ucdavis.edu/projects/the-guantanamo-testimonials-project

Wednesday July 1, 2009, 9:33 am

"Why on earth would anyone want to free these enemy combatants that want to kill us?"

Gina, first of all, many of these "enemy combatants" have never even been PROVEN to be such because they have not been charged with a crime, nor had a trial! Secondly, studies have also shown that "confessions" acquired after extended torture are usually false -- and only result from a desire to STOP the TORTURE!.

Also, are you unaware that WE (American taxpayers) are the ones PAYING for this indefinite detention of "assumed" criminals? And, if they are not U.S. citizens, wouldn't it be best to just return them to their country of origin, and place them on an "exclude" list from returning to America????

I must wonder how anyone who adopts your thinking would feel if they traveled to another country, were detained "indefinitely" (without charge or recourse) and were then told "YOU are not afforded, nor are YOU entitled to, the rights and privileges of our laws."

This country is supposed to be a benchmark for upholding human rights. We constantly "interfere" (terrorize) other countries on the premise that they DON'T, and we need to "rescue" their citizens from fascism and dictators.!

*Shaking my head*

Wednesday July 1, 2009, 9:35 am
You said it, Carole, Thank You!

Wednesday July 1, 2009, 9:37 am
Thank you Ben,

Wednesday July 1, 2009, 10:20 am
Good, Ben and Carole!

Wednesday July 1, 2009, 5:35 pm
OOPs, looking at the names, I mixed the lines in my head...Gerry for Gina...sorry for any confusion - apologies to Gerry, my address was to Gina's comments. Dyslexia is a confusing Thang... AM i one it with

Wednesday July 1, 2009, 6:50 pm
Noted and action taken. Thanks Ben and Carol

Wednesday July 1, 2009, 7:26 pm
Message sent. THX Ben

Wednesday July 1, 2009, 9:36 pm
Thanks Ben. Glad you explained that to Gina, Carole. However, in your example you gave the scenario of U.S. citizens traveling to other lands and being detained without trial or recourse. It happens to U.S. citizens right here, also.

Did the 16-year-old American boy ever get released to go home to his mom? He was arrested under the Patriot's Act and had no Constitutional rights. Here is a VIDEO about him:

WRAL5 News Report - 16-year-old arrested under the Patriot Act - VIDEO

http://www.infowars.com/wral-5-news-report-on-boy-arrested-under-the-patriot-act/

Gina, U.S. authorities did not need to suspect detainees of terrorism to imprison them. My brother was a handicapped a U.S. citizen who was secretly arrested in Shelby Co. Jail in Memphis in 2003, returned to us DEAD after 18 days of secret arrest, and the DOJ helped cover it up rather than investigate his demise. The Obama DOJ is now several days OVERDUE sending us a response to our FIOA Request for records on Larry's Guantanamo-style detainment, although we have asked for records for SIX YEARS. Read about it at http://WrongfulDeathOfLarryNeal.com

Remember, what goes around comes around. You want your government to do this to others - detain people indefinitely without trial - please don't say anything when they do the same to you and your family.

Thursday July 2, 2009, 12:04 am
This is something that is being done at HOME with American Citizens on a regular basis. Thanks to Bushbaby and his Patriot Act. But, America never needed the Patriot Act to do so as described by Mary and countless others.
Whenever you let one in charge get away with it trickles down to the masses. People need to wake up to who the real terrorists are!
Thanks Ben

Thursday July 2, 2009, 12:38 am
The U.S. ruling class is doing so many horrific things to people around the world that it is surely time to build a mass movement to democratise the USA!!!

Thursday July 2, 2009, 2:24 am

Thank you for speaking out. We understand that you are busy, and we appreciate your time and effort.

Thank you, Ben,
and thank you, David, for sending this to me.
noted.

Thursday July 2, 2009, 11:02 am
Message sent twice Thanks Ben

Thursday July 2, 2009, 12:04 pm
noted & sent

Thursday July 2, 2009, 12:17 pm
I met a lovely man. Haroom Rashid and his wife in Denver back in 2001. Haroom and his 12 year old son had immigrated to the US after the death of his wife. He had family established in the US and was asked to come to a new country, heal from his great loss and start fresh. Haroom, working through the system established himself in business, met and married a beautiful woman and were blessed with a baby girl...then it all began.
In 2003, GW started the campaign to be re-elected. We were being bombarded with yellow and orange alerts everytime we turned arpound and every time anyone questioned the administration on Downing Street Minutes, Renditioning, 9-11...
Ashcroft stood in front of a scared nation and declared they had busted a terrorist cell in Denver....naming in Newsweek the name of a suspect, Haroom Rashid, a man who had been "known to be:" a member of Al Qaeda in Pakistan...That was the FIRST time Haroom heard about it; the first the Denver police or even the state government had heard about it. His son was then picked up (16 now) and "detained" without charges, for 3 months in the Arapahoe county jail. He was in high school and expelled for loss of time without an excuse and for being a disruption to the school - he was a good student, good grades, no problems ever. The US FBI would not let him be released, would not let him study and would not let his familty visit. eventually he was released....Haroom lost his business when customers stopped coming in and the area he was in stopped supporting him in the community. He was without work, a son in trouble for no reason, a new wife and baby he could not support but NEVER was he arrested nor was there EVER anyone following up on the alleged terrorist cell of which Ashcroft claimed NATIONALLY him to be a member...In fact, there was NEVER a terrorist cell IN DENVER!
After attempts to get his record expunged, his name cleared and Ashcroft to retract his statements, he was received with denials, refusals and dead silence. He contacted the magazine, he contacted attorneys, he contacted officials...Nothing.
He lost his home, his livelihood and only had his family.
Upon visiting his sister one evening in their apartment in Aurora. CO, he went to get in his car and leave. At that time, he was approached by a gangbanger; Words insued; Haroom was attacked; The family called the police on the gangbanger...BOTH Haroom and the gangbanger were arrested.
The gangbanger, a member of the Crips with a rap sheet a mile long for everything from drug dealing, robbery, assault AND AN ACTIVE WARRANT ON HIS HEAD was released the next day after cutting a deal and filing a statement that HAROOM had attacked him without provocation. Haroom NEVER saw the light of day again. Haroom never got to be outside of a cell or hold his baby daughter without bars and men with guns surrounding him...The DA manipulated the case and would not allow proper discovery...They were on a witch hunt and they named their swarthy, brown witch. Haroom never saw freedom in the US again. After 3 years of fighting the courts, being thrown around without ever receiving a fair trial, Haroom Rashid was deported back to Pakistan...by himself in 2006.
His wife cannot get on a plane, neither can his son since they are on the TSA list of "known" terrorists.
John Ashcroft NEVER recanted his lie, Newsweek never recanted the false story, Bush went on to another 4 years of Constitution shredding and Haroom Rashid is another victim of the WAR OF TERROR

Thursday July 2, 2009, 3:49 pm
action taken.

Thursday July 2, 2009, 9:50 pm
Simon, I am with you, maybe we should exercise our Independence of government saying it is 4th July an all??

Saturday July 4, 2009, 11:47 pm
America seems to have a big problem to separate right from wrong. Are you all still so happy with your wonderful president? When I mentioned my doubts about him in the beginning, people even offended me.

Sunday July 5, 2009, 3:49 am
Salon Radio: Charlie Savage on Obama's civil liberties record by Glenn Greenwald

(updated w/transcript)


Back in February, The New York Times' Charlie Savage -- who won the Pulitzer Prize for exposing Bush's use of signing statements to break the law -- wrote an article reporting that, after a first-week Executive Order from Obama banning torture, "the Obama administration is QUIETLY SIGNALING CONTINUED SUPPORT for other MAJOR ELEMENTS of its predecessor’s approach to fighting Al Qaeda," which is "prompting growing worry among civil liberties groups and a sense of VINDICATION among SUPPORTERS of Bush-ERA POLICIES."

(excerpt Savage's Feb article: "In little-noticed confirmation testimony recently, Obama nominees endorsed continuing the C.I.A.’s program of transferring prisoners to other countries without legal rights, and indefinitely detaining terrorism suspects without trials even if they were arrested far from a war zone.

The administration has also embraced the Bush legal team’s arguments that a lawsuit by former C.I.A. detainees should be shut down based on the “state secrets” doctrine. It has also left the door open to resuming military commission trials.")

At the time, I thought that he painted a slightly more pessimistic picture on the civil liberties front than was warranted by the evidence thus far (though only slightly), but, in retrospect, Savage was right and I was wrong about that: his article was far more prescient than premature.



Today, in the NYT, Savage has another article examining the same topic, headlined: "To Critics, New Policy on Terror Looks Old."Link text In it, he explores this question: "Has [Obama], on issues related to fighting terrorism, turned out to be little different from his predecessor?" A key point from Savage's article -- which I've tried to emphasize several times (Obama's embrace of Bush terrorism policies is celebrated as "Centrism" )-- is that whereas these policies were supported by roughly half the population (Republicans) in the Bush era but VEHEMENTLY OPPOSED by the OTHER HALF (at least ostensibly), OBAMA's EMBRACE OF THEM is now causing a large part of the other half of the population (Democrats) to support them as well, thus ENTRENCHING them as bipartisan CONSENSUS:


In any case, Jack Balkin, a Yale Law School professor, said MR. OBAMA’s RATIFICATION of the basic outlines of THE SURVEILLANCE and DETENTION POLICICIES HE INHERITED would REVERBERATE for GENERATIONS. By bestowing bipartisan acceptance on them, Mr. Balkin said, Mr. Obama is CONSOLIDATING THEM as ENTRENCHED FEATURES of GOVERNMENT.

"What we are watching," Mr. Balkin said, "is a liberal, centrist, Democratic version of THE CONSTRUCTION of these SAME GOVERNING PRACTICES."



That was the point former BUSH DOJ LAWYER Jack Goldsmith made when arguing last month that OBAMA IS ACTUALLY STRENGTHENING (rather than "changing") THE BUSH/CHENEY APPROACH to TERRRORISM even MORE EFFECTIVELY than Bush did by ENTRENCHING those policies IN LAW and causing UNPRINCIPLED Democrats to switch from PRETENDING TO OPPOSE them to SUPPORTING THEM, thus transforming them into BIPARTISAN DOGMA.


Savage is my guest on Salon Radio today to talk about Obama's record on terrorism and civil liberties, and the way -- as Savage describes it -- Obama has EMBRACES and REPLICATED many of the CORE "War on Terror" POLICIES of the BUSH PRESIDENCY, particularly in the form they took in Bush's second term (even as Obama largely purports to reject the Bush theories of unilateral presidential power). We also discuss how so many people who previously criticized these polices rather vocally when pursued by Bush are either SILENT or ACTIVELY SUPPORTIVE now that Obama IS DEFENDING THEM. There simply aren't any better reporters on these issues than Savage, and I highly recommend listening to his very nuanced and well-informed views on these topics.


The discussion is roughly 20 minutes in length and can be heard by clicking PLAY on the recorder below. A transcript will be posted shortly.


UPDATE: The transcript is now posted here .


On a note related to all of this, the Obama administration -- which has repeatedly delayed releasing a less redacted version of the 2004 report of the CIA's Inspector General that aggressively challenged both the legality and efficacy of torture -- today (July 2nd) announced that it would DELAY its DISCLOSURE by at least another seven weeks, to August 31, 2009 . We're in the New Era of Tranpsarency."

Sunday July 5, 2009, 9:42 am
Noted and action taken.

Wednesday July 8, 2009, 12:11 am
noted and action taken. Thank you so much, Ben!

Thursday July 23, 2009, 9:54 am
Done
thx