By William Fisher
As the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency acknowledged it had erroneously denied using British territory to transport victims of “extraordinary rendition,” a federal court bowed to pressure from the Bush administration to dismiss a case against a Boeing subsidiary being sued for providing the aircraft that carried the suspected terrorists.
The U.S. and British governments revealed last week that two American. extraordinary rendition" flights carrying terrorism suspects refueled on U.K. territory on the island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean in 2002. Both governments had repeatedly denied that the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had ever used British airspace or territory for the secret flights.
Foreign Minister David Miliband said he was "very sorry indeed" to have to correct previous denials by former Prime Minister Tony Blair and other top British officials. Prime Minister Gordon Brown expressed "disappointment" that the United States notified the British government of the flights just last week and called it a "very serious issue."
In a telephone call, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice apologized to Brown. CIA Director Michael V. Hayden issued a statement saying that information supplied to Britain "in good faith" had "turned out to be wrong."
Human rights advocates have long suspected that the Indian Ocean atoll was being used as a base for detaining or transporting suspected terrorists.
The British government has consistently denied any involvement in the CIA's rendition program, in which terror suspects are flown for interrogation to countries whose security services are known to practice torture.
Meanwhile, a Federal judge last week dismissed a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) against a subsidiary of the Boeing Company, Jeppesen Dataplan, Inc. for the company’s alleged role in the CIA’s “extraordinary rendition” program.
The suit charged that Jeppesen knowingly aided the program by providing flight planning and logistical support services for aircraft and crews used by the CIA to transport victims to U.S.-run prisons or foreign intelligence agencies overseas, where they were subjected to harsh interrogation techniques and torture.
The government successfully intervened to block the suit, arguing that litigation of the case would reveal “state secrets” and harm national security. The Bush Administration has increasingly used the so-called State Secrets Privilege to block lawsuits.
The judge rejected the ACLU’s claim that “abundant evidence” was already in the public domain, including a sworn affidavit by a former Jeppesen employee and flight records confirming Jeppesen’s involvement. It was unclear whether the ACLU would appeal the verdict.
In a related development, the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee convened a hearing on the bipartisan State Secrets Protection Act, which would require courts to examine classified evidence instead of dismissing cases on the word of the perpetrators themselves, and would prohibit any dismissal prior to discovery. The measure has been introduced by Senators Edward Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts and Pennsylvania Republican Arlen Specter, the committee’s ranking member.
These developments came on the heels of congressional testimony by a controversial Department of Justice (DOJ) lawyer, Steven G. Bradbury, during which he admitted that Bush administration allowed CIA interrogators to use tactics that were "quite distressing, uncomfortable, even frightening," but did not cause enough severe and lasting pain to qualify as torture.
President George W. Bush has nominated Bradbury to head the DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), of which he is now acting chief. He is the author of several DOJ memoranda purporting to establish a legal basis for the use of waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques. Waterboarding is generally defined as “simulated drowning.”
OLC, one of the DOJ’s most influential offices, drafts legal opinions of the Attorney General and also provides its own written opinions. The Office also is responsible for providing legal advice to the executive branch on all constitutional questions and reviewing pending legislation for constitutionality.
In surprisingly direct testimony before a House of Representatives committee, Bradbury described in grim detail how the administration regulated the CIA's use of aggressive tactics and offered new details of how waterboarding -- simulated drowning -- was used to compel disclosures by prisoners suspected of being al-Qaeda members.
He denied that the CIA’s waterboarding techniques were similar to the "water torture" used during the Spanish Inquisition and by the security services of dictatorial governments during the 20th century. He said it was subject to "strict time limits, safeguards, restrictions" and that no water entered the lungs of the three “high value” prisoners who were subjected to the practice in 2002 and 2003.
Bradbury joined his boss, Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey, in declining to say whether waterboarding is torture, or whether it is illegal under laws passed in 2005 and 2006 to regulate abusive treatment of detainees.
He said the Military Commissions Act and other newer laws "would make it much more difficult to conclude that the practice was lawful today," but added that this was not the case in 2002, when the CIA's interrogation program began. At that time, DOJ lawyers concluded, in secret legal opinions, that waterboarding and other tactics were legal.
Experts on human rights abuses and torture say the CIA waterboarding is similar to the technique employed by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, the French in Algeria, and the security services in Myanmar (Burma).
CIA Director Michael V. Hayden recently confirmed the use of waterboarding for the first time but said the practice is no longer allowed under CIA rules. One of those subjected to the tactic, he said, was Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the alleged masterminded of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. He is one of six detainees at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, who is scheduled to be tried by Military Commission.
Guantanamo Bay continued to be subjected to ongoing scrutiny by legal experts and civil liberties advocates. A new study announced by Prof. Mark Denbeaux of the Seton Hall University School of Law revealed that more than 24,000 interrogations have been conducted at Guantánamo since 2002 – and claimed that every one was videotaped.
Conducted by Seton Hall faculty and students, the study is based largely on U.S. Government documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. The study concluded it was not possible to determine which videotapes still exist, and which have been destroyed.
In a 2005 case, a federal judge issued an order to the Government mandating that "all evidence and information regarding the torture, mistreatment, and abuse of detainees now at (Guantánamo Bay) be preserved. But in November 2005, CIA officials destroyed at least two videotapes documenting the interrogations of two Guantánamo detainees.
The destruction of the two tapes has caused a firestorm of protest in congress and among human rights advocates.
Gabor Rona, International Legal Director of advocacy group Human Rights First, summed up the situation, telling IPS, “The administration refuses to name torture torture, destroys the evidence of torture, and obstructs the efforts of torture victims to seek justice in the courts. It does so to protect those who authorized and administered torture from having to face criminal accountability for war crimes and civil liability to the victims. It also does this to maintain its ability to offer illegal and unreliable evidence that is based on torture in the Guantanamo military commissions.”
He added, “The authorization, implementation and cover-up of torture violates U.S. and international law, undermines U.S. standing to promote democracy and human rights, and serves as a green light to despotic regimes around the world to trample human rights in the name of counterterrorism."
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Friday, February 22, 2008
BOEING SUBSIDIARY SCOT FREE, HAYDEN, BRADBURY ON THE HOT SEAT
By William Fisher
As the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency acknowledged it had erroneously denied using British territory to transport victims of “extraordinary rendition,” a federal court bowed to pressure from the Bush administration to dismiss a case against a Boeing subsidiary being sued for providing the aircraft that carried the suspected terrorists.
The U.S. and British governments revealed last week that two American. "extraordinary rendition" flights carrying terrorism suspects refueled on U.K. territory on the island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean in 2002. Both governments had repeatedly denied that the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had ever used British airspace or territory for the secret flights.
Foreign Minister David Miliband said he was "very sorry indeed" to have to correct previous denials by former Prime Minister Tony Blair and other top British officials. Prime Minister Gordon Brown expressed "disappointment" that the United States notified the British government of the flights just last week and called it a "very serious issue."
In a telephone call, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice apologized to Brown. CIA Director Michael V. Hayden issued a statement saying that information supplied to Britain "in good faith" had "turned out to be wrong."
Human rights advocates have long suspected that the Indian Ocean atoll was being used as a base for detaining or transporting suspected terrorists.
The British government has consistently denied any involvement in the CIA's rendition program, in which terror suspects are flown for interrogation to countries whose security services are known to practice torture.
Meanwhile, a Federal judge last week dismissed a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) against a subsidiary of the Boeing Company, Jeppesen Dataplan, Inc. for the company’s alleged role in the CIA’s “extraordinary rendition” program.
The suit charged that Jeppesen knowingly aided the program by providing flight planning and logistical support services for aircraft and crews used by the CIA to transport victims to U.S.-run prisons or foreign intelligence agencies overseas, where they were subjected to harsh interrogation techniques and torture.
The government successfully intervened to block the suit, arguing that litigation of the case would reveal “state secrets” and harm national security. The Bush Administration has increasingly used the so-called State Secrets Privilege to block lawsuits.
The judge rejected the ACLU’s claim that “abundant evidence” was already in the public domain, including a sworn affidavit by a former Jeppesen employee and flight records confirming Jeppesen’s involvement. It was unclear whether the ACLU would appeal the verdict.
In a related development, the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee convened a hearing on the bipartisan State Secrets Protection Act, which would require courts to examine classified evidence instead of dismissing cases on the word of the perpetrators themselves, and would prohibit any dismissal prior to discovery. The measure has been introduced by Senators Edward Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts and Pennsylvania Republican Arlen Specter, the committee’s ranking member.
These developments came on the heels of congressional testimony by a controversial Department of Justice (DOJ) lawyer, Steven G. Bradbury, during which he admitted that Bush administration allowed CIA interrogators to use tactics that were "quite distressing, uncomfortable, even frightening," but did not cause enough severe and lasting pain to qualify as torture.
President George W. Bush has nominated Bradbury to head the DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), of which he is now acting chief. He is the author of several DOJ memoranda purporting to establish a legal basis for the use of waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques. Waterboarding is generally defined as “simulated drowning.”
OLC, one of the DOJ’s most influential offices, drafts legal opinions of the Attorney General and also provides its own written opinions. The Office also is responsible for providing legal advice to the executive branch on all constitutional questions and reviewing pending legislation for constitutionality.
In surprisingly direct testimony before a House of Representatives committee, Bradbury described in grim detail how the administration regulated the CIA's use of aggressive tactics and offered new details of how waterboarding -- simulated drowning -- was used to compel disclosures by prisoners suspected of being al-Qaeda members.
He denied that the CIA’s waterboarding techniques were similar to the "water torture" used during the Spanish Inquisition and by the security services of dictatorial governments during the 20th century. He said it was subject to "strict time limits, safeguards, restrictions" and that no water entered the lungs of the three “high value” prisoners who were subjected to the practice in 2002 and 2003.
Bradbury joined his boss, Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey, in declining to say whether waterboarding is torture, or whether it is illegal under laws passed in 2005 and 2006 to regulate abusive treatment of detainees.
He said the Military Commissions Act and other newer laws "would make it much more difficult to conclude that the practice was lawful today," but added that this was not the case in 2002, when the CIA's interrogation program began. At that time, DOJ lawyers concluded, in secret legal opinions, that waterboarding and other tactics were legal.
Experts on human rights abuses and torture say the CIA waterboarding is similar to the technique employed by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, the French in Algeria, and the security services in Myanmar (Burma).
CIA Director Michael V. Hayden recently confirmed the use of waterboarding for the first time but said the practice is no longer allowed under CIA rules. One of those subjected to the tactic, he said, was Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the alleged masterminded of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. He is one of six detainees at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, who is scheduled to be tried by Military Commission.
Guantanamo Bay continued to be subjected to ongoing scrutiny by legal experts and civil liberties advocates. A new study announced by Prof. Mark Denbeaux of the Seton Hall University School of Law revealed that more than 24,000 interrogations have been conducted at Guantánamo since 2002 – and claimed that every one was videotaped.
Conducted by Seton Hall faculty and students, the study is based largely on U.S. Government documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. The study concluded it was not possible to determine which videotapes still exist, and which have been destroyed.
In a 2005 case, a federal judge issued an order to the Government mandating that "all evidence and information regarding the torture, mistreatment, and abuse of detainees now at (Guantánamo Bay) be preserved. But in November 2005, CIA officials destroyed at least two videotapes documenting the interrogations of two Guantánamo detainees.
The destruction of the two tapes has caused a firestorm of protest in congress and among human rights advocates.
Gabor Rona, International Legal Director of advocacy group Human Rights First, summed up the situation, telling IPS, “The administration refuses to name torture torture, destroys the evidence of torture, and obstructs the efforts of torture victims to seek justice in the courts. It does so to protect those who authorized and administered torture from having to face criminal accountability for war crimes and civil liability to the victims. It also does this to maintain its ability to offer illegal and unreliable evidence that is based on torture in the Guantanamo military commissions.”
He added, “The authorization, implementation and cover-up of torture violates U.S. and international law, undermines U.S. standing to promote democracy and human rights, and serves as a green light to despotic regimes around the world to trample human rights in the name of counterterrorism."
As the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency acknowledged it had erroneously denied using British territory to transport victims of “extraordinary rendition,” a federal court bowed to pressure from the Bush administration to dismiss a case against a Boeing subsidiary being sued for providing the aircraft that carried the suspected terrorists.
The U.S. and British governments revealed last week that two American. "extraordinary rendition" flights carrying terrorism suspects refueled on U.K. territory on the island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean in 2002. Both governments had repeatedly denied that the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had ever used British airspace or territory for the secret flights.
Foreign Minister David Miliband said he was "very sorry indeed" to have to correct previous denials by former Prime Minister Tony Blair and other top British officials. Prime Minister Gordon Brown expressed "disappointment" that the United States notified the British government of the flights just last week and called it a "very serious issue."
In a telephone call, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice apologized to Brown. CIA Director Michael V. Hayden issued a statement saying that information supplied to Britain "in good faith" had "turned out to be wrong."
Human rights advocates have long suspected that the Indian Ocean atoll was being used as a base for detaining or transporting suspected terrorists.
The British government has consistently denied any involvement in the CIA's rendition program, in which terror suspects are flown for interrogation to countries whose security services are known to practice torture.
Meanwhile, a Federal judge last week dismissed a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) against a subsidiary of the Boeing Company, Jeppesen Dataplan, Inc. for the company’s alleged role in the CIA’s “extraordinary rendition” program.
The suit charged that Jeppesen knowingly aided the program by providing flight planning and logistical support services for aircraft and crews used by the CIA to transport victims to U.S.-run prisons or foreign intelligence agencies overseas, where they were subjected to harsh interrogation techniques and torture.
The government successfully intervened to block the suit, arguing that litigation of the case would reveal “state secrets” and harm national security. The Bush Administration has increasingly used the so-called State Secrets Privilege to block lawsuits.
The judge rejected the ACLU’s claim that “abundant evidence” was already in the public domain, including a sworn affidavit by a former Jeppesen employee and flight records confirming Jeppesen’s involvement. It was unclear whether the ACLU would appeal the verdict.
In a related development, the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee convened a hearing on the bipartisan State Secrets Protection Act, which would require courts to examine classified evidence instead of dismissing cases on the word of the perpetrators themselves, and would prohibit any dismissal prior to discovery. The measure has been introduced by Senators Edward Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts and Pennsylvania Republican Arlen Specter, the committee’s ranking member.
These developments came on the heels of congressional testimony by a controversial Department of Justice (DOJ) lawyer, Steven G. Bradbury, during which he admitted that Bush administration allowed CIA interrogators to use tactics that were "quite distressing, uncomfortable, even frightening," but did not cause enough severe and lasting pain to qualify as torture.
President George W. Bush has nominated Bradbury to head the DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), of which he is now acting chief. He is the author of several DOJ memoranda purporting to establish a legal basis for the use of waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques. Waterboarding is generally defined as “simulated drowning.”
OLC, one of the DOJ’s most influential offices, drafts legal opinions of the Attorney General and also provides its own written opinions. The Office also is responsible for providing legal advice to the executive branch on all constitutional questions and reviewing pending legislation for constitutionality.
In surprisingly direct testimony before a House of Representatives committee, Bradbury described in grim detail how the administration regulated the CIA's use of aggressive tactics and offered new details of how waterboarding -- simulated drowning -- was used to compel disclosures by prisoners suspected of being al-Qaeda members.
He denied that the CIA’s waterboarding techniques were similar to the "water torture" used during the Spanish Inquisition and by the security services of dictatorial governments during the 20th century. He said it was subject to "strict time limits, safeguards, restrictions" and that no water entered the lungs of the three “high value” prisoners who were subjected to the practice in 2002 and 2003.
Bradbury joined his boss, Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey, in declining to say whether waterboarding is torture, or whether it is illegal under laws passed in 2005 and 2006 to regulate abusive treatment of detainees.
He said the Military Commissions Act and other newer laws "would make it much more difficult to conclude that the practice was lawful today," but added that this was not the case in 2002, when the CIA's interrogation program began. At that time, DOJ lawyers concluded, in secret legal opinions, that waterboarding and other tactics were legal.
Experts on human rights abuses and torture say the CIA waterboarding is similar to the technique employed by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, the French in Algeria, and the security services in Myanmar (Burma).
CIA Director Michael V. Hayden recently confirmed the use of waterboarding for the first time but said the practice is no longer allowed under CIA rules. One of those subjected to the tactic, he said, was Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the alleged masterminded of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. He is one of six detainees at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, who is scheduled to be tried by Military Commission.
Guantanamo Bay continued to be subjected to ongoing scrutiny by legal experts and civil liberties advocates. A new study announced by Prof. Mark Denbeaux of the Seton Hall University School of Law revealed that more than 24,000 interrogations have been conducted at Guantánamo since 2002 – and claimed that every one was videotaped.
Conducted by Seton Hall faculty and students, the study is based largely on U.S. Government documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. The study concluded it was not possible to determine which videotapes still exist, and which have been destroyed.
In a 2005 case, a federal judge issued an order to the Government mandating that "all evidence and information regarding the torture, mistreatment, and abuse of detainees now at (Guantánamo Bay) be preserved. But in November 2005, CIA officials destroyed at least two videotapes documenting the interrogations of two Guantánamo detainees.
The destruction of the two tapes has caused a firestorm of protest in congress and among human rights advocates.
Gabor Rona, International Legal Director of advocacy group Human Rights First, summed up the situation, telling IPS, “The administration refuses to name torture torture, destroys the evidence of torture, and obstructs the efforts of torture victims to seek justice in the courts. It does so to protect those who authorized and administered torture from having to face criminal accountability for war crimes and civil liability to the victims. It also does this to maintain its ability to offer illegal and unreliable evidence that is based on torture in the Guantanamo military commissions.”
He added, “The authorization, implementation and cover-up of torture violates U.S. and international law, undermines U.S. standing to promote democracy and human rights, and serves as a green light to despotic regimes around the world to trample human rights in the name of counterterrorism."
Monday, February 18, 2008
THE REAL STRAIGHT-TALK EXPRESS
By William Fisher
I usually raise my glass in gleeful celebration every time some senior member of the Bush Administration announces he’s leaving office “to spend more time with his family” or some other lame pro forma Washington excuse.
That usually means he/she is leaving in disgrace. Or yearning for the big bucks on the lecture circuit. Or on his/her way to the slammer.
But today is different.
Today, I lament the departure of one of the most courageous, effective and thoughtful public servants ever to serve the United States.
His name is David M. Walker. Most Americans have never heard of him. His title is Comtroller General of the United States. That’s Comptroller with an M. His job is to head the Government Accountability Office, or GAO. The GAO is the investigative agency of Congress.
Most Americans have never heard of the GAO either.
Pity. Because, in a government of incompetents, spinners, cronies, political hacks, wiretappers and torturers, David Walker’s GAO has been one of the very few bright lights in town.
And he’s a Republican! Imagine me celebrating a departing Republican!
But that’s where the similarity with Dubya ends.
Because David Walker is the kind of Republican who has become an endangered – almost extinct -- species in Bush’s Washington. He’s what the conductor of the Straight-Talk Express pretends to be and what he would like us to believe he is.
A word about the GAO. It used to be called the General Accounting Office. But its name was changed a few years ago to more accurately reflect what it actually does. Which is to hold the government accountable. Its head is by statute appointed by the president for a 15-year term. Which is how Walker got selected by Bill Clinton in 1998. My bet is that Dubya has deep regrets about that decision.
Because holding the government accountable is indeed what GAO has done under David Walker’s leadership. It has investigated government incompetence, waste, fraud and abuse in every Cabinet department and dozens of agencies. The range of subjects it has looked into last year alone is breathtaking. Contractor malfeasance in Iraq and Afghanistan. The failures of FEMA and other agencies to respond adequately to Katrina. The consistently criminal waste by the Pentagon. The failure of the Defense Department and the Veterans Administration to meet minimal standards for providing health care and benefits for our returning warriors. Runaway spending and the absence of even minimal systems to account for that spending. And much, much more.
On behalf of Congress, David Walker and his staff have spoken truth to power.
But, to its great credit, it has resisted being mesmerized by its power to expose. Every GAO report – and there and hundreds of them – tells those with the patience to read not only what’s wrong with a department or a program. It tells those who run these things what they need to do to fix their problems.
This has made the GAO the most agreed-with and most soon-forgotten agency in government. Departments and agencies the GAO has investigated rarely object to its corrective recommendations. In fact, most of them agree. But they rarely take action to implement those recommendations – or they make all the right noises and slow-walk GAO’s suggestions into oblivion.
As for GAO’s masters, the Congress, its members are perfectly delighted to use GAO’s findings to convene “oversight” hearings, adopt non-binding “sense of the House” resolutions, write press releases, and generally hone their grandstanding skills.
And, every once in a while, some actual piece of legislation may arise from a problem illuminated by the GAO. But that’s pretty rare. Politicians have short memories. And they are comforted by the knowledge that the public has less.
That enables them to play their Kabuki Theater roles with Oscar-winning skill – and then do absolutely nothing.
Which, barely having to read between the lines, is why David Walker is leaving his post.
“As comptroller general of the United States, there are real limitations on what I can do and say in connection with key public policy issues, especially issues that directly relate to GAO’s client — the Congress,” he said.
Walker has lived his professional life with clients – before coming to Washington, he headed a major office of a major international accounting firm. But I suspect his private sector clients did a far more conscientious job than our government of following his advice.
So he has chosen to leave his post at the GAO to become the president and CEO of the newly founded Peter G. Peterson Foundation.
“While I love both my job as comptroller general and the GAO,” he said, “I love my country more. And I believe that leading this foundation represents a unique opportunity and will be good for my country. My new position will provide me with the ability and resources to more aggressively address a range of current and emerging challenges facing our country, including advocating specific policy solutions and courses of action.”
In his new incarnation, Walker will oversee the billion-dollar endowment of Pete Peterson – former Commerce Secretary, the founder of the Blackstone group, The Concord Coalition, and legendary advocate for government fiscal responsibility.
“We are at a make-or-break point in American history,” Mr. Peterson said of his new foundation. “The entitlement monster is unfunded. We are dangerously dependent on foreign capital, our health care costs per capita are twice the level of the developed world, he said, and then asked, ” How do you educate a public that has become largely inert?”
It will be up to David Walker to try to find a coherent answer to this question. This is a gargantuan job. There are no short-term fixes, despite what our current presidential wanabees would have us believe.
George Bush and his Executive branch of government have failed abjectly in this mission. Congress has failed. Maybe a private foundation can do better. In his new job, I trust David Walker to continue to speak truth to power, to be as thoughtful, as incisive, and as fearless, as he has been at the GAO.
Even if he’s a Republican!
I usually raise my glass in gleeful celebration every time some senior member of the Bush Administration announces he’s leaving office “to spend more time with his family” or some other lame pro forma Washington excuse.
That usually means he/she is leaving in disgrace. Or yearning for the big bucks on the lecture circuit. Or on his/her way to the slammer.
But today is different.
Today, I lament the departure of one of the most courageous, effective and thoughtful public servants ever to serve the United States.
His name is David M. Walker. Most Americans have never heard of him. His title is Comtroller General of the United States. That’s Comptroller with an M. His job is to head the Government Accountability Office, or GAO. The GAO is the investigative agency of Congress.
Most Americans have never heard of the GAO either.
Pity. Because, in a government of incompetents, spinners, cronies, political hacks, wiretappers and torturers, David Walker’s GAO has been one of the very few bright lights in town.
And he’s a Republican! Imagine me celebrating a departing Republican!
But that’s where the similarity with Dubya ends.
Because David Walker is the kind of Republican who has become an endangered – almost extinct -- species in Bush’s Washington. He’s what the conductor of the Straight-Talk Express pretends to be and what he would like us to believe he is.
A word about the GAO. It used to be called the General Accounting Office. But its name was changed a few years ago to more accurately reflect what it actually does. Which is to hold the government accountable. Its head is by statute appointed by the president for a 15-year term. Which is how Walker got selected by Bill Clinton in 1998. My bet is that Dubya has deep regrets about that decision.
Because holding the government accountable is indeed what GAO has done under David Walker’s leadership. It has investigated government incompetence, waste, fraud and abuse in every Cabinet department and dozens of agencies. The range of subjects it has looked into last year alone is breathtaking. Contractor malfeasance in Iraq and Afghanistan. The failures of FEMA and other agencies to respond adequately to Katrina. The consistently criminal waste by the Pentagon. The failure of the Defense Department and the Veterans Administration to meet minimal standards for providing health care and benefits for our returning warriors. Runaway spending and the absence of even minimal systems to account for that spending. And much, much more.
On behalf of Congress, David Walker and his staff have spoken truth to power.
But, to its great credit, it has resisted being mesmerized by its power to expose. Every GAO report – and there and hundreds of them – tells those with the patience to read not only what’s wrong with a department or a program. It tells those who run these things what they need to do to fix their problems.
This has made the GAO the most agreed-with and most soon-forgotten agency in government. Departments and agencies the GAO has investigated rarely object to its corrective recommendations. In fact, most of them agree. But they rarely take action to implement those recommendations – or they make all the right noises and slow-walk GAO’s suggestions into oblivion.
As for GAO’s masters, the Congress, its members are perfectly delighted to use GAO’s findings to convene “oversight” hearings, adopt non-binding “sense of the House” resolutions, write press releases, and generally hone their grandstanding skills.
And, every once in a while, some actual piece of legislation may arise from a problem illuminated by the GAO. But that’s pretty rare. Politicians have short memories. And they are comforted by the knowledge that the public has less.
That enables them to play their Kabuki Theater roles with Oscar-winning skill – and then do absolutely nothing.
Which, barely having to read between the lines, is why David Walker is leaving his post.
“As comptroller general of the United States, there are real limitations on what I can do and say in connection with key public policy issues, especially issues that directly relate to GAO’s client — the Congress,” he said.
Walker has lived his professional life with clients – before coming to Washington, he headed a major office of a major international accounting firm. But I suspect his private sector clients did a far more conscientious job than our government of following his advice.
So he has chosen to leave his post at the GAO to become the president and CEO of the newly founded Peter G. Peterson Foundation.
“While I love both my job as comptroller general and the GAO,” he said, “I love my country more. And I believe that leading this foundation represents a unique opportunity and will be good for my country. My new position will provide me with the ability and resources to more aggressively address a range of current and emerging challenges facing our country, including advocating specific policy solutions and courses of action.”
In his new incarnation, Walker will oversee the billion-dollar endowment of Pete Peterson – former Commerce Secretary, the founder of the Blackstone group, The Concord Coalition, and legendary advocate for government fiscal responsibility.
“We are at a make-or-break point in American history,” Mr. Peterson said of his new foundation. “The entitlement monster is unfunded. We are dangerously dependent on foreign capital, our health care costs per capita are twice the level of the developed world, he said, and then asked, ” How do you educate a public that has become largely inert?”
It will be up to David Walker to try to find a coherent answer to this question. This is a gargantuan job. There are no short-term fixes, despite what our current presidential wanabees would have us believe.
George Bush and his Executive branch of government have failed abjectly in this mission. Congress has failed. Maybe a private foundation can do better. In his new job, I trust David Walker to continue to speak truth to power, to be as thoughtful, as incisive, and as fearless, as he has been at the GAO.
Even if he’s a Republican!
BACKDOORING THE CONSTITUTION
By William Fisher
First, it was Signing Statements, where the president signs laws passed by Congress and then declares he will interpret them any way he wishes. George W. Bush has issued more of these statements than all his predecessors combined. His trashing of the Detainee Treatment Act is arguably the best known example, but the range of his statements has covered issues from the existential to the trivial.
Simultaneously, he has simply violated previous laws and done whatever he says is “in the interest of national security.” Most widely publicized is his decision to ignore the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA) to recruit telephone companies to intercept phone calls and emails to U.S. citizens without court orders. This despite that law’s requirement that the government show probable cause to the FISA court so it can issue a warrant. Makes you wonder whether the telecom industry’s army of lawyers ever passed Constitutional Law 101!
All of the above – and much more -- has been perpetrated upon the people to further Mr. Bush’s ever-expanding definition of presidential powers. Never mind that the Constitution constructs a government of three co-equal branches: executive, legislative and judiciary. The president has treated the legislative branch as if it was his special assistant. And he’s tried to do the same thing with the courts. But, to their credit, our judges – including many appointed by Bush himself -- have dealt this administration some stunning reversals.
The White House mantra is “If the president says it, it’s legal.” He is, after all, The Decider, no?
Now the Bushies have discovered a new tactic: the budget. They are attempting to use a kind of “backdoor signing statement” to thwart the will of Congress.
And the particular issue involved is Congress’ attempt to help lift the veil of secrecy that has shrouded our Government for the past seven years.
In August of last year, Congress passed the Open Government Act. The measure established a new Office of Government Information within the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), an independent Federal agency charged with preserving and documenting government and historical records and increasing public access to those documents. The office was to be headed by an ombudsman to oversee disputes over the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), avoid unnecessary litigation, and monitor the way Department of Justice (DOJ) implements that law.
President Bush signed the measure in December 2007. But when he submitted his $3.1 trillion budget proposal to Congress, no funds were included for the new program. Instead, the funding was hidden deep within the budget appendix under the Department of Commerce -- on page 239 of the 1,314-page document – and shifted the new office to the Department of Justice (DOJ).
The Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Vermont Democrat Sen. Patrick Leahy, one of the original cosponsors of the Open Government Act, said, "Such a move is not only contrary to the express intent of the Congress, but it is also contrary to the very purpose of this legislation — to ensure the timely and fair resolution of Americans’ FOIA requests."
The reason: The DOJ is the department charged with defending agencies accused of inappropriately withholding documents requested under the FOIA. This gives it a bias in favor of federal agencies, making it both judge and jury.
According to Sean Moulton, Director of Federal Information Policy for OMB Watch, a not-for-profit government watchdog group, “The president is definitely using his budget proposal to try and relocate the FOIA Ombudsman office (OGIS) to the DOJ. It is similar to signing statements in that it is the president's attempt to alter implementation of a law as it was laid out by congress.”
Leahy also noted DOJ's "abysmal record on FOIA compliance" over the past seven years as another reason the agency makes a poor choice for the location of OGIS.
The Freedom of Information Act, signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1966, allows for the full or partial disclosure of previously unreleased information and documents controlled by the U.S. Government.
In 2001, Attorney General John Ashcroft issued a memo stating that the DOJ would defend in court any federal agency that withheld information on justifiable grounds. Previously, the standard was that the presumption was for disclosure. The new law restored the previous presumption.
Critics of the Bush Administration say they are not surprised at the president’s use of the budget to thwart the will of congress. They see the tactic as part of a pattern of restricting access to information. They cite the growth of public requests for information under the Freedom of Information over the last six years. In 2006, the total number of FOIA requests received in 2006 was 21,412,736, substantially larger than in 2005.
And, according to an audit conducted in January 2007 by the National Security Archive (NSA), an independent non-governmental research institute and library located at The George Washington University which collects and publishes declassified documents obtained through FOIA, agency backlogs remain significant. One FOIA request has now been pending for more than 20 years. The statutory response time is 20 business days.
The Bush Administration has refused to release information on a wide range of subjects, including the secret meetings of Vice President Dick Cheney’s energy policy task force. It has ordered federal Websites to remove much of the information they had posted that the Administration believed could be sensitive. It issued a controversial memo limiting access to records under the Presidential Records Act in November 2001, which allowed former Presidents and Vice-Presidents to prevent access to records. And it refused to disclose information on the Patriot Act and the names of those arrested after the attacks of September 11, 2001.
Many of those denied access to information have sued the government. Among the most widely publicized was the suit brought by a group of advocacy organizations including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), and others, to force the Department of Defense (DOD) to turn over documents relating to the harsh interrogation methods used against detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The suit yielded hundreds of thousands of documents, including reports by agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) confirming such treatment.
While open-government advocates express varying levels of confidence in the proposed new Ombudsman’s importance, they agree on at least one thing: it is important that the law be implemented as written. As expressed by Steven Aftergood, head of the Government Secrecy Project for the Federation of American Scientists, “Any effort by the Administration to deviate from the terms of a statute should be opposed, no matter how trivial it might be, because the law is the law.”
So two questions need to be answered: Is the president listening? And, if not, does Congress have the spine to tell The Decider he’s not?
First, it was Signing Statements, where the president signs laws passed by Congress and then declares he will interpret them any way he wishes. George W. Bush has issued more of these statements than all his predecessors combined. His trashing of the Detainee Treatment Act is arguably the best known example, but the range of his statements has covered issues from the existential to the trivial.
Simultaneously, he has simply violated previous laws and done whatever he says is “in the interest of national security.” Most widely publicized is his decision to ignore the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA) to recruit telephone companies to intercept phone calls and emails to U.S. citizens without court orders. This despite that law’s requirement that the government show probable cause to the FISA court so it can issue a warrant. Makes you wonder whether the telecom industry’s army of lawyers ever passed Constitutional Law 101!
All of the above – and much more -- has been perpetrated upon the people to further Mr. Bush’s ever-expanding definition of presidential powers. Never mind that the Constitution constructs a government of three co-equal branches: executive, legislative and judiciary. The president has treated the legislative branch as if it was his special assistant. And he’s tried to do the same thing with the courts. But, to their credit, our judges – including many appointed by Bush himself -- have dealt this administration some stunning reversals.
The White House mantra is “If the president says it, it’s legal.” He is, after all, The Decider, no?
Now the Bushies have discovered a new tactic: the budget. They are attempting to use a kind of “backdoor signing statement” to thwart the will of Congress.
And the particular issue involved is Congress’ attempt to help lift the veil of secrecy that has shrouded our Government for the past seven years.
In August of last year, Congress passed the Open Government Act. The measure established a new Office of Government Information within the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), an independent Federal agency charged with preserving and documenting government and historical records and increasing public access to those documents. The office was to be headed by an ombudsman to oversee disputes over the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), avoid unnecessary litigation, and monitor the way Department of Justice (DOJ) implements that law.
President Bush signed the measure in December 2007. But when he submitted his $3.1 trillion budget proposal to Congress, no funds were included for the new program. Instead, the funding was hidden deep within the budget appendix under the Department of Commerce -- on page 239 of the 1,314-page document – and shifted the new office to the Department of Justice (DOJ).
The Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Vermont Democrat Sen. Patrick Leahy, one of the original cosponsors of the Open Government Act, said, "Such a move is not only contrary to the express intent of the Congress, but it is also contrary to the very purpose of this legislation — to ensure the timely and fair resolution of Americans’ FOIA requests."
The reason: The DOJ is the department charged with defending agencies accused of inappropriately withholding documents requested under the FOIA. This gives it a bias in favor of federal agencies, making it both judge and jury.
According to Sean Moulton, Director of Federal Information Policy for OMB Watch, a not-for-profit government watchdog group, “The president is definitely using his budget proposal to try and relocate the FOIA Ombudsman office (OGIS) to the DOJ. It is similar to signing statements in that it is the president's attempt to alter implementation of a law as it was laid out by congress.”
Leahy also noted DOJ's "abysmal record on FOIA compliance" over the past seven years as another reason the agency makes a poor choice for the location of OGIS.
The Freedom of Information Act, signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1966, allows for the full or partial disclosure of previously unreleased information and documents controlled by the U.S. Government.
In 2001, Attorney General John Ashcroft issued a memo stating that the DOJ would defend in court any federal agency that withheld information on justifiable grounds. Previously, the standard was that the presumption was for disclosure. The new law restored the previous presumption.
Critics of the Bush Administration say they are not surprised at the president’s use of the budget to thwart the will of congress. They see the tactic as part of a pattern of restricting access to information. They cite the growth of public requests for information under the Freedom of Information over the last six years. In 2006, the total number of FOIA requests received in 2006 was 21,412,736, substantially larger than in 2005.
And, according to an audit conducted in January 2007 by the National Security Archive (NSA), an independent non-governmental research institute and library located at The George Washington University which collects and publishes declassified documents obtained through FOIA, agency backlogs remain significant. One FOIA request has now been pending for more than 20 years. The statutory response time is 20 business days.
The Bush Administration has refused to release information on a wide range of subjects, including the secret meetings of Vice President Dick Cheney’s energy policy task force. It has ordered federal Websites to remove much of the information they had posted that the Administration believed could be sensitive. It issued a controversial memo limiting access to records under the Presidential Records Act in November 2001, which allowed former Presidents and Vice-Presidents to prevent access to records. And it refused to disclose information on the Patriot Act and the names of those arrested after the attacks of September 11, 2001.
Many of those denied access to information have sued the government. Among the most widely publicized was the suit brought by a group of advocacy organizations including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), and others, to force the Department of Defense (DOD) to turn over documents relating to the harsh interrogation methods used against detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The suit yielded hundreds of thousands of documents, including reports by agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) confirming such treatment.
While open-government advocates express varying levels of confidence in the proposed new Ombudsman’s importance, they agree on at least one thing: it is important that the law be implemented as written. As expressed by Steven Aftergood, head of the Government Secrecy Project for the Federation of American Scientists, “Any effort by the Administration to deviate from the terms of a statute should be opposed, no matter how trivial it might be, because the law is the law.”
So two questions need to be answered: Is the president listening? And, if not, does Congress have the spine to tell The Decider he’s not?
Saturday, February 16, 2008
HEAR NO EVIL, SEE NO EVIL
By William Fisher
President George W. Bush’s critics are charging that he is attempting to use a “backdoor signing statement” to thwart the will of Congress to help lift the veil of secrecy that has shrouded the U.S. Government for the past seven years.
In August of last year, Congress passed the Open Government Act. The measure established a new Office of Government Information within the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), an independent Federal agency charged with preserving and documenting government and historical records and increasing public access to those documents. The office was to be headed by an ombudsman to oversee disputes over the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), avoid unnecessary litigation, and monitor the way Department of Justice (DOJ) implements that law.
President Bush signed the measure in December 2007. But when he submitted his $3.1 trillion budget proposal to Congress, no funds were included for the new program. Instead, the funding was hidden deep within the budget appendix under the Department of Commerce -- on page 239 of the 1,314-page document – and shifted the new office to the Department of Justice (DOJ).
The Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Vermont Democrat Sen. Patrick Leahy, one of the original cosponsors of the Open Government Act, said, "Such a move is not only contrary to the express intent of the Congress, but it is also contrary to the very purpose of this legislation — to ensure the timely and fair resolution of Americans’ FOIA requests."
The reason: The DOJ is the department charged with defending agencies accused of inappropriately withholding documents requested under the FOIA. This gives it a bias in favor of federal agencies, making it both judge and jury.
According to Sean Moulton, Director of Federal Information Policy for OMB Watch, a not-for-profit government watchdog group, “The president is definitely using his budget proposal to try and relocate the FOIA Ombudsman office (OGIS) to the DOJ. It is similar to signing statements in that it is the president's attempt to alter implementation of a law as it was laid out by congress.”
Leahy also noted DOJ's "abysmal record on FOIA compliance" over the past seven years as another reason the agency makes a poor choice for the location of OGIS.
The Freedom of Information Act, signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1966, allows for the full or partial disclosure of previously unreleased information and documents controlled by the U.S. Government.
In 2001, Attorney General John Ashcroft issued a memo stating that the DOJ would defend in court any federal agency that withheld information on justifiable grounds. Previously, the standard was that the presumption was for disclosure. The new law restored the previous presumption.
Throughout his administration, President Bush has used so-called “signing statements,” rather than the budget, to modify acts of Congress he finds objectionable. Perhaps the best-known of these was issued after he signed the so-called McCain Amendment to the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005. That measure was intended to prohibit inhumane treatment of prisoners, including prisoners at Guantanamo Bay; and required military interrogations to be performed according to the Code of Military Justice. After signing the law, Bush issued a signing statement saying he would interpret the law “in a manner consistent with the constitutional authority of the President to supervise the unitary executive branch and as Commander in Chief.”
Such statements have become a hallmark of the Bush Administration. From the inception of the Republic until 2000, presidents produced fewer than 600 signing. Since 2001, President Bush has objected on constitutional grounds to sections of more than 750 laws.
But critics of the Bush Administration say they are not surprised at the president’s use of the budget to thwart the will of congress. They see the tactic as part of a pattern of restricting access to information. They cite the growth of public requests for information under the Freedom of Information over the last six years. In 2006, the total number of FOIA requests received in 2006 was 21,412,736, substantially larger than in 2005.
And, according to an audit conducted in January 2007 by the National Security Archive (NSA), an independent non-governmental research institute and library located at The George Washington University which collects and publishes declassified documents obtained through FOIA, agency backlogs remain significant. One FOIA request has now been pending for more than 20 years. The statutory response time is 20 business days.
The Bush Administration has refused to release information on a wide range of subjects, including the secret meetings of Vice President Dick Cheney’s energy policy task force. It has ordered federal Websites to remove much of the information they had posted that the Administration believed could be sensitive. It issued a controversial memo limiting access to records under the Presidential Records Act in November 2001, which allowed former Presidents and Vice-Presidents to prevent access to records. And it refused to disclose information on the Patriot Act and the names of those arrested after the attacks of September 11, 2001.
Many of those denied access to information have sued the government. Among the most widely publicized was the suit brought by a group of advocacy organizations including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), and others, to force the Department of Defense (DOD) to turn over documents relating to the harsh interrogation methods used against detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The suit yielded hundreds of thousands of documents, including reports by agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) confirming such treatment.
Open-government advocates express varying levels of confidence in the proposed new Ombudsman’s importance. Steven Aftergood, head of the Government Secrecy Project for the Federation of American Scientists, told us he doesn’t have “high expectations of the ombudsman's office, regardless of where it is located.” He asked, “Is an official from the National Archives really going to intervene on my behalf when the CIA stubbornly refuses to process one of my requests? Would it make a difference if he or she did? I tend to doubt it.”
OMB Watch’s Moulton takes a different view. He told us, “I firmly believe Congress got it right when they assigned the job to the National Archives, which has better objectivity on FOIA disputes and greater experience in managing the disclosure of documents. Justice's traditional position of defending agencies against FOIA lawsuits, means a bias to side with agencies in disputes likely exists.”
“The office's direct clout with agencies will derive from the level of support the Administration provides. This will be tied directly to how high a priority the next administration places on disclosure and transparency,” he added.
But both agree that “it is important that the law be implemented as written. Any effort by the Administration to deviate from the terms of a statute should be opposed, no matter how trivial it might be, because the law is the law.”
And both point out that the president’s budget action “is not a done deal.” Aftergood says, “Congress can appropriate funds for the ombudsman to be expended solely at the Archives, and can prohibit their use by Justice.”
OMB Watch’s Moulton agrees. He told us, “Congress can, and in many ways always does, deviate from the President's proposed budget. The question is whether congress will allocate money to the National Archives for the office even though the President didn't request it.”
President George W. Bush’s critics are charging that he is attempting to use a “backdoor signing statement” to thwart the will of Congress to help lift the veil of secrecy that has shrouded the U.S. Government for the past seven years.
In August of last year, Congress passed the Open Government Act. The measure established a new Office of Government Information within the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), an independent Federal agency charged with preserving and documenting government and historical records and increasing public access to those documents. The office was to be headed by an ombudsman to oversee disputes over the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), avoid unnecessary litigation, and monitor the way Department of Justice (DOJ) implements that law.
President Bush signed the measure in December 2007. But when he submitted his $3.1 trillion budget proposal to Congress, no funds were included for the new program. Instead, the funding was hidden deep within the budget appendix under the Department of Commerce -- on page 239 of the 1,314-page document – and shifted the new office to the Department of Justice (DOJ).
The Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Vermont Democrat Sen. Patrick Leahy, one of the original cosponsors of the Open Government Act, said, "Such a move is not only contrary to the express intent of the Congress, but it is also contrary to the very purpose of this legislation — to ensure the timely and fair resolution of Americans’ FOIA requests."
The reason: The DOJ is the department charged with defending agencies accused of inappropriately withholding documents requested under the FOIA. This gives it a bias in favor of federal agencies, making it both judge and jury.
According to Sean Moulton, Director of Federal Information Policy for OMB Watch, a not-for-profit government watchdog group, “The president is definitely using his budget proposal to try and relocate the FOIA Ombudsman office (OGIS) to the DOJ. It is similar to signing statements in that it is the president's attempt to alter implementation of a law as it was laid out by congress.”
Leahy also noted DOJ's "abysmal record on FOIA compliance" over the past seven years as another reason the agency makes a poor choice for the location of OGIS.
The Freedom of Information Act, signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1966, allows for the full or partial disclosure of previously unreleased information and documents controlled by the U.S. Government.
In 2001, Attorney General John Ashcroft issued a memo stating that the DOJ would defend in court any federal agency that withheld information on justifiable grounds. Previously, the standard was that the presumption was for disclosure. The new law restored the previous presumption.
Throughout his administration, President Bush has used so-called “signing statements,” rather than the budget, to modify acts of Congress he finds objectionable. Perhaps the best-known of these was issued after he signed the so-called McCain Amendment to the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005. That measure was intended to prohibit inhumane treatment of prisoners, including prisoners at Guantanamo Bay; and required military interrogations to be performed according to the Code of Military Justice. After signing the law, Bush issued a signing statement saying he would interpret the law “in a manner consistent with the constitutional authority of the President to supervise the unitary executive branch and as Commander in Chief.”
Such statements have become a hallmark of the Bush Administration. From the inception of the Republic until 2000, presidents produced fewer than 600 signing. Since 2001, President Bush has objected on constitutional grounds to sections of more than 750 laws.
But critics of the Bush Administration say they are not surprised at the president’s use of the budget to thwart the will of congress. They see the tactic as part of a pattern of restricting access to information. They cite the growth of public requests for information under the Freedom of Information over the last six years. In 2006, the total number of FOIA requests received in 2006 was 21,412,736, substantially larger than in 2005.
And, according to an audit conducted in January 2007 by the National Security Archive (NSA), an independent non-governmental research institute and library located at The George Washington University which collects and publishes declassified documents obtained through FOIA, agency backlogs remain significant. One FOIA request has now been pending for more than 20 years. The statutory response time is 20 business days.
The Bush Administration has refused to release information on a wide range of subjects, including the secret meetings of Vice President Dick Cheney’s energy policy task force. It has ordered federal Websites to remove much of the information they had posted that the Administration believed could be sensitive. It issued a controversial memo limiting access to records under the Presidential Records Act in November 2001, which allowed former Presidents and Vice-Presidents to prevent access to records. And it refused to disclose information on the Patriot Act and the names of those arrested after the attacks of September 11, 2001.
Many of those denied access to information have sued the government. Among the most widely publicized was the suit brought by a group of advocacy organizations including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), and others, to force the Department of Defense (DOD) to turn over documents relating to the harsh interrogation methods used against detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The suit yielded hundreds of thousands of documents, including reports by agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) confirming such treatment.
Open-government advocates express varying levels of confidence in the proposed new Ombudsman’s importance. Steven Aftergood, head of the Government Secrecy Project for the Federation of American Scientists, told us he doesn’t have “high expectations of the ombudsman's office, regardless of where it is located.” He asked, “Is an official from the National Archives really going to intervene on my behalf when the CIA stubbornly refuses to process one of my requests? Would it make a difference if he or she did? I tend to doubt it.”
OMB Watch’s Moulton takes a different view. He told us, “I firmly believe Congress got it right when they assigned the job to the National Archives, which has better objectivity on FOIA disputes and greater experience in managing the disclosure of documents. Justice's traditional position of defending agencies against FOIA lawsuits, means a bias to side with agencies in disputes likely exists.”
“The office's direct clout with agencies will derive from the level of support the Administration provides. This will be tied directly to how high a priority the next administration places on disclosure and transparency,” he added.
But both agree that “it is important that the law be implemented as written. Any effort by the Administration to deviate from the terms of a statute should be opposed, no matter how trivial it might be, because the law is the law.”
And both point out that the president’s budget action “is not a done deal.” Aftergood says, “Congress can appropriate funds for the ombudsman to be expended solely at the Archives, and can prohibit their use by Justice.”
OMB Watch’s Moulton agrees. He told us, “Congress can, and in many ways always does, deviate from the President's proposed budget. The question is whether congress will allocate money to the National Archives for the office even though the President didn't request it.”
Friday, February 15, 2008
GITMO: JUSTICE OR SHOW TRIALS
By William Fisher
As the U.S. moves toward the death-sentence trials of six suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, legal scholars and human rights advocates are raising questions not only about the process that led to the prosecutions but also about the Bush Administration’s motives in bringing the charges now and the credibility of the trials themselves.
The charges filed against the six, including alleged Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed, outline a litany of war crimes and include conspiracy, murder, attacking civilians, terrorism and supporting terrorism. All six suspects are being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and the military plans to try the six together. If convicted, they would likely be executed at Guantanamo.
Before being shipped to Guantanamo, five of the defendants were held without charges or legal representation by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency in secret prisons in Eastern Europe and elsewhere and reportedly subjected to torture.
The Bush Administration has acknowledged that at least one of the defendants, Mr. Mohammed, the reported “mastermind” of the September 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, was subjected to “waterboarding” while in custody.
Waterboarding, a technique that simulates drowning, has been acknowledged as torture for hundreds of years. During World War Two, U.S. authorities prosecuted Japanese soldiers for using the practice against American prisoners of war. The newly-appointed U.S. Attorney General, Michael Mukasey, has declined to say whether waterboarding is torture.
Vice President Dick Cheney has vigorously defended the use of waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques, referring to them as “a tougher program for a very few tougher customers.”
Of the six men charged, Mr. Mohammed and four others were held for as long as three years in the secret C.I.A. prisons that were part of what the agency calls its “high-value terrorist interrogation program.” The prisons were established in 2002, but the administration did not publicly reveal their existence until 2006, when Mr. Mohammed and other detainees were moved from the C.I.A. facilities to the military prison in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
Military authorities have declared that no evidence obtained through torture will be used at the trials.
But many legal experts, including Columbia University law professor Scott Horton, are questioning whether the government can convict the six without using evidence obtained through torture.
Horton also told IPS he believes the process used to establish the Military Commissions -- criminal courts run by the U.S. armed forces -- is likely to result in what says will be “a series of show trials” timed to strengthen the Republican Party’s chances in the 2008 presidential election.
Horton is one of a large group of lawyers and legal scholars who are questioning the government’s motives and well as its timing in deciding to move ahead with the trials.
He added, “After being held for six years, there is a suspicion that the timing of trials is being ‘politically manipulated’ to coincide with the 2008 presidential election. He said he feared the result will be a case “bordering on a show trial."
This viewed is shared by Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), a New York-based legal advocacy group, which represents one of the defendants, Mohammad al Qahtani, who has been held at Guantanamo for six years and claims to have been tortured during that time.
Ratner told IPS that the Military Commission system “has none of the guarantees of regular trials. Coerced and hearsay evidence can be used. There is no jury only a group of military officers and the judge is appointed by the Bush administration. Much of the trial can be held in secret and the defendant does not get to see all of the evidence. After this sham process the defendant if convicted can receive the death penalty. There is a barbarity to the actions of the Bush administration that is without precedent.”
Many military lawyers have expressed similar views. For example, the head prosecutor at Guantánamo, Colonel Morris Davis, resigned when he was placed directly under the command of the General Counsel of the Department of Defense, a principal author of the military commissions system.
And lifelong Republican John Hutson, a retired Judge Advocate General, has expressed increasing frustration with the Bush administration's treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay. Hutson has become a leading voice among former military officials opposing Bush policies on Guantanamo Bay and torture, worried about the precedent it would set for future conflicts.
But the Bush Administration argues that ordinary courts are not equipped to handle the sensitive national security considerations involved in trying top
terrorists.
A spokesman for the Pentagon, Air Force Brig. Gen. Thomas W. Hartmann, a Defense Department legal adviser, said the trials will be "as open as possible,", and the accused will have the right to call their own witnesses, cross-examine prosecution witnesses and see the evidence presented against them.
"There will be no secret trials," he said. He added that the defendants will be tried by a 12-member military commission, which must reach a unanimous verdict. A decision to impose a capital sentence also must be unanimous, he said.
But Hartmann declined to answer questions about the admissibility of evidence
obtained by waterboarding, which the CIA has acknowledged using to extract information from one of those now being charged.
The procedures of the military commissions have been repeatedly challenged in U.S. civilian courts, resulting in a number of stinging defeats for the Bush Administration and contributing to the delays in beginning prosecutions.
The legal saga began in 2001, when President Bush issued an executive order establishing military commissions to try those captured in the “War on Terror.” But in 2004, a federal judge ruled that Salim Hamdan – accused of being a driver of Osama bin Laden – could not be tried by a commission established by an executive order. Only an act of congress, the court suggested, could be legal.
So in December 2005, a Republican-controlled congress passed the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 (DTA). It stripped U.S. courts of jurisdiction over habeas corpus petitions filed on behalf of Guantánamo detainees challenging the reason for their detention and vested exclusive review of final decisions of military commissions in a single circuit court.
A year later, an appeals court overturned the Hamdan decision. And a year after that, the Supreme Court reversed the appeals court decision. The High Court ruled that military commissions, as defined under the President’s executive order, violated military law and the Geneva Conventions.
Congress then hurriedly enacted the Military Commissions Act of 2005, which President Bush signed into law in early 2006. That law, which is still under challenge in the courts, became the basis of the current prosecutions.
The forthcoming trials have also generated considerable interest abroad. For example, the influential British newspaper, The Independent, wrote last month, “The decision to use Mohammed and the others as guinea-pigs in a constitutionally dubious legal proceeding is likely to trigger a firestorm of anti-American sentiment in the Islamic world and spark a fractious domestic debate in an already highly charged presidential election year.”
Concern about the credibility of the U.S. has also been voiced by many American legal scholars.
David Cole, one of America’s preeminent constitutional authorities, told IPS, “For better or worse, the U.S. is a world leader on matters of human rights. When the US violates human rights in the fight against terrorism, it sends a message to autocrats and dictators worldwide that they, too, can deny human rights in the name of counterterrorism.”
This viewed was echoed by he CCR’s Ratner, who told IPS, “These trials are important because the U.S., a country that often criticizes torture and military tribunals in other countries such as Nigeria and Turkey is now using torture and trials outside its normal system to try alleged 9/11 conspirators.”
And This view was echoed by Ratner, who said: "These trials are important because the U.S., a country that often criticises torture and military tribunals in other countries -- such as Nigeria and Turkey -- is now using torture and trials outside its normal system to try the alleged Sep. 11 conspirators.
“These trials, if they ever do occur, cannot deliver justice. The use of secret evidence, hearsay evidence (where the accused does not have the opportunity to cross-examine the witness against him), and evidence possibly gained through torture and other cruel and inhuman interrogation techniques assures that the trials will not be fair,” he told us.
Gabor Rona, International Legal Director for legal advocacy group Human Rights First, concurs. He told us, “This process was designed not to do justice, but to assure convictions. If it is justice that is sought, then there is little reason for inventing a new system of trials where everything is uncertain and the rules are made up as the cases proceed. If it is justice that is sought, there is little logic in casting aside the legal architecture that has served the US well for over 200 years. Both before and since 9/11, America's normal criminal justice system has handled dozens of often difficult cases involving allegations of international terrorism, using established rules consistent with international principles of fair trial.”
He added, “These trials will be a stain on America's reputation for fairness. These trials will harm US relations with the rest of the world, will give ammunition to those who promote international terrorism, and will setback the cause of human rights values around the world.”
As the U.S. moves toward the death-sentence trials of six suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, legal scholars and human rights advocates are raising questions not only about the process that led to the prosecutions but also about the Bush Administration’s motives in bringing the charges now and the credibility of the trials themselves.
The charges filed against the six, including alleged Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed, outline a litany of war crimes and include conspiracy, murder, attacking civilians, terrorism and supporting terrorism. All six suspects are being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and the military plans to try the six together. If convicted, they would likely be executed at Guantanamo.
Before being shipped to Guantanamo, five of the defendants were held without charges or legal representation by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency in secret prisons in Eastern Europe and elsewhere and reportedly subjected to torture.
The Bush Administration has acknowledged that at least one of the defendants, Mr. Mohammed, the reported “mastermind” of the September 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, was subjected to “waterboarding” while in custody.
Waterboarding, a technique that simulates drowning, has been acknowledged as torture for hundreds of years. During World War Two, U.S. authorities prosecuted Japanese soldiers for using the practice against American prisoners of war. The newly-appointed U.S. Attorney General, Michael Mukasey, has declined to say whether waterboarding is torture.
Vice President Dick Cheney has vigorously defended the use of waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques, referring to them as “a tougher program for a very few tougher customers.”
Of the six men charged, Mr. Mohammed and four others were held for as long as three years in the secret C.I.A. prisons that were part of what the agency calls its “high-value terrorist interrogation program.” The prisons were established in 2002, but the administration did not publicly reveal their existence until 2006, when Mr. Mohammed and other detainees were moved from the C.I.A. facilities to the military prison in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
Military authorities have declared that no evidence obtained through torture will be used at the trials.
But many legal experts, including Columbia University law professor Scott Horton, are questioning whether the government can convict the six without using evidence obtained through torture.
Horton also told IPS he believes the process used to establish the Military Commissions -- criminal courts run by the U.S. armed forces -- is likely to result in what says will be “a series of show trials” timed to strengthen the Republican Party’s chances in the 2008 presidential election.
Horton is one of a large group of lawyers and legal scholars who are questioning the government’s motives and well as its timing in deciding to move ahead with the trials.
He added, “After being held for six years, there is a suspicion that the timing of trials is being ‘politically manipulated’ to coincide with the 2008 presidential election. He said he feared the result will be a case “bordering on a show trial."
This viewed is shared by Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), a New York-based legal advocacy group, which represents one of the defendants, Mohammad al Qahtani, who has been held at Guantanamo for six years and claims to have been tortured during that time.
Ratner told IPS that the Military Commission system “has none of the guarantees of regular trials. Coerced and hearsay evidence can be used. There is no jury only a group of military officers and the judge is appointed by the Bush administration. Much of the trial can be held in secret and the defendant does not get to see all of the evidence. After this sham process the defendant if convicted can receive the death penalty. There is a barbarity to the actions of the Bush administration that is without precedent.”
Many military lawyers have expressed similar views. For example, the head prosecutor at Guantánamo, Colonel Morris Davis, resigned when he was placed directly under the command of the General Counsel of the Department of Defense, a principal author of the military commissions system.
And lifelong Republican John Hutson, a retired Judge Advocate General, has expressed increasing frustration with the Bush administration's treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay. Hutson has become a leading voice among former military officials opposing Bush policies on Guantanamo Bay and torture, worried about the precedent it would set for future conflicts.
But the Bush Administration argues that ordinary courts are not equipped to handle the sensitive national security considerations involved in trying top
terrorists.
A spokesman for the Pentagon, Air Force Brig. Gen. Thomas W. Hartmann, a Defense Department legal adviser, said the trials will be "as open as possible,", and the accused will have the right to call their own witnesses, cross-examine prosecution witnesses and see the evidence presented against them.
"There will be no secret trials," he said. He added that the defendants will be tried by a 12-member military commission, which must reach a unanimous verdict. A decision to impose a capital sentence also must be unanimous, he said.
But Hartmann declined to answer questions about the admissibility of evidence
obtained by waterboarding, which the CIA has acknowledged using to extract information from one of those now being charged.
The procedures of the military commissions have been repeatedly challenged in U.S. civilian courts, resulting in a number of stinging defeats for the Bush Administration and contributing to the delays in beginning prosecutions.
The legal saga began in 2001, when President Bush issued an executive order establishing military commissions to try those captured in the “War on Terror.” But in 2004, a federal judge ruled that Salim Hamdan – accused of being a driver of Osama bin Laden – could not be tried by a commission established by an executive order. Only an act of congress, the court suggested, could be legal.
So in December 2005, a Republican-controlled congress passed the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 (DTA). It stripped U.S. courts of jurisdiction over habeas corpus petitions filed on behalf of Guantánamo detainees challenging the reason for their detention and vested exclusive review of final decisions of military commissions in a single circuit court.
A year later, an appeals court overturned the Hamdan decision. And a year after that, the Supreme Court reversed the appeals court decision. The High Court ruled that military commissions, as defined under the President’s executive order, violated military law and the Geneva Conventions.
Congress then hurriedly enacted the Military Commissions Act of 2005, which President Bush signed into law in early 2006. That law, which is still under challenge in the courts, became the basis of the current prosecutions.
The forthcoming trials have also generated considerable interest abroad. For example, the influential British newspaper, The Independent, wrote last month, “The decision to use Mohammed and the others as guinea-pigs in a constitutionally dubious legal proceeding is likely to trigger a firestorm of anti-American sentiment in the Islamic world and spark a fractious domestic debate in an already highly charged presidential election year.”
Concern about the credibility of the U.S. has also been voiced by many American legal scholars.
David Cole, one of America’s preeminent constitutional authorities, told IPS, “For better or worse, the U.S. is a world leader on matters of human rights. When the US violates human rights in the fight against terrorism, it sends a message to autocrats and dictators worldwide that they, too, can deny human rights in the name of counterterrorism.”
This viewed was echoed by he CCR’s Ratner, who told IPS, “These trials are important because the U.S., a country that often criticizes torture and military tribunals in other countries such as Nigeria and Turkey is now using torture and trials outside its normal system to try alleged 9/11 conspirators.”
And This view was echoed by Ratner, who said: "These trials are important because the U.S., a country that often criticises torture and military tribunals in other countries -- such as Nigeria and Turkey -- is now using torture and trials outside its normal system to try the alleged Sep. 11 conspirators.
“These trials, if they ever do occur, cannot deliver justice. The use of secret evidence, hearsay evidence (where the accused does not have the opportunity to cross-examine the witness against him), and evidence possibly gained through torture and other cruel and inhuman interrogation techniques assures that the trials will not be fair,” he told us.
Gabor Rona, International Legal Director for legal advocacy group Human Rights First, concurs. He told us, “This process was designed not to do justice, but to assure convictions. If it is justice that is sought, then there is little reason for inventing a new system of trials where everything is uncertain and the rules are made up as the cases proceed. If it is justice that is sought, there is little logic in casting aside the legal architecture that has served the US well for over 200 years. Both before and since 9/11, America's normal criminal justice system has handled dozens of often difficult cases involving allegations of international terrorism, using established rules consistent with international principles of fair trial.”
He added, “These trials will be a stain on America's reputation for fairness. These trials will harm US relations with the rest of the world, will give ammunition to those who promote international terrorism, and will setback the cause of human rights values around the world.”
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
LET THE EAGLE WHORE
By William Fisher
Since this is the season of nominations – Grammies, Oscars, etc. – it’s time for me to disclose my choice for the winner of “The Most Outrageous Statement of the Year.”
Here’s the statement: George W. Bush has been "most respectful in terms of respecting the civil liberties and rights of individuals while engaged in the important task of fighting for freedom." The president “respects liberty so profoundly that he has protected it and has safeguarded civil liberties more than any other president in wartime that I know of.”
And the maker of that statement? Here’s a hint: He’s something of a singer – “Let The Eagle Soar” is among his favorites. And he’s also something of a prude: The government department he headed spent $8,000 on blue drapes to hide two giant, semi-nude art deco statues, one a female representing the “Spirit of Justice”, with its arms raised and a toga draped over its body, but a single breast exposed; the other a man depicting the “Majesty of Law” with a cloth covering his midsection.
You guessed it: Former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft.
Speaking to hundreds of Missouri Republicans attending the party's statewide Lincoln Days festivities last weekend, the one-time Missouri governor and senator said the president has been using security measures to protect freedoms, not to curb freedom.
"It is stunning to me that when the president of the United States, George W. Bush, simply says that we need to be able to monitor calls being made to terrorist territories, known geographies that are the source of terrorist activities, or known terrorists who are making calls into the United States … that some people see it as an infringement somehow, " Ashcroft said.
But how much credibility does the Bush first-term Attorney General have on the subject of protecting civil liberties and the rule of law?
Isn’t this the same guy who pressured Congress to hurriedly enact the USA Patriot Act, which gave astonishing powers to federal agencies to dramatically increase the government's surveillance, search-and-seizure and wiretapping authority?
Isn’t this the same guy who authorized DOJ officials to monitor the discussions that attorneys have with clients who are in federal custody, including those detained, but not charged with a criminal offense in violation of the First, Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Amendments to the Constitution?
Who rounded up and imprisoned over 1200 men of Middle Eastern descent based largely on pretextual immigration violations and refused to disclose their identity and location and the reason for their detention, while denying them fundamental due process rights? (The roundup produced some deportations, but NO criminal convictions.)
Who sought to question roughly 8,000 men of Middle Eastern descent, who were legal residents of the U.S., a flagrant form of racial profiling?
Who imposed a policy of selectively enforcing deportation orders against men from Middle Eastern countries?
Who helped draft the presidential order that created secret military tribunals to bypass the U.S. court system, contained significant due process violations, and allowed for the imposition of the death penalty?
Who initiated a project called Operation TIPS (Terrorist Information and Prevention System) to recruit and train a million volunteers (including postal workers, utility personnel and the like) in 10 cities who would be encouraged to report suspicious terrorist activity?
Who approved racial profiling guidelines that were little more than rhetorical smoke and mirrors, providing no rights or remedies and included a broad and largely undefined exception when ""national security" concerns came into play?
Who encouraged the 93 US Attorneys to lobby members of Congress who voted for an amendment to prohibit DOJ funds to be used to enforce ""sneak and peak"" warrants?
Who failed to bring any new cases against any police departments for police misconduct or abuse and attempted to change the definition of racial profiling to undermine future litigation?
Who killed a pilot program that provided federal money to pay for DNA testing to exonerate innocent inmates?
Who issued an order that certified federal agents to repeal the licenses of any doctor who prescribed lethal drugs for terminally ill patients?
Who further blurred the line between church and state by conducting daily sessions of prayer and Bible study at the DOJ, while being a major proponent of Bush's faith based initiative and working to create a legal theory that would withstand a constitutional challenge to direct federal funding of religious groups including churches, synagogues and mosques?
And who thumbed his nose at the First Amendment right to dissent by telling Congress that anyone who raised concerns about his actions would ""aid terrorists"" and ""give ammunition to America's enemies"?
In the wake of 9/11, it is understandable that the American people were traumatized and terrified that the next shoe would soon drop – on them. But John Ashcroft and his politically-appointed cronies at the Justice Department blatantly exploited that fear. They pandered to the worst instincts of the American people.
Let us not forget that it was John Ashcroft who hastily convened a taxpayer-financed satellite press conference while on a trip to Moscow to proclaim that the U.S. had arrested a man who planned to use a radiological “dirty bomb” to blow up apartment buildings in the U.S. (a charge that was nowhere to be found when American citizen Jose Padilla was finally put on trial after three years of virtually incommunicado imprisonment.)
And, speaking of cronies, let us note that Mr. Ashcroft’s loyalty to the president is not without its upside. Recently, the U.S. Attorney for the New Jersey, Christopher Christie, selected Ashcroft, his former boss, as one of four attorneys hired in a no-bid process to monitor five medical device manufacturers companies that New Jersey prosecutors had investigated for funneling kickbacks to orthopedic surgeons.
Ashcroft's contract will bring his legal and consulting firm between $27 million and $52 million for monitoring compliance at Indiana-based Zimmer Holdings, Inc.
So The Eagle will soar – all the way to the bank.
Since this is the season of nominations – Grammies, Oscars, etc. – it’s time for me to disclose my choice for the winner of “The Most Outrageous Statement of the Year.”
Here’s the statement: George W. Bush has been "most respectful in terms of respecting the civil liberties and rights of individuals while engaged in the important task of fighting for freedom." The president “respects liberty so profoundly that he has protected it and has safeguarded civil liberties more than any other president in wartime that I know of.”
And the maker of that statement? Here’s a hint: He’s something of a singer – “Let The Eagle Soar” is among his favorites. And he’s also something of a prude: The government department he headed spent $8,000 on blue drapes to hide two giant, semi-nude art deco statues, one a female representing the “Spirit of Justice”, with its arms raised and a toga draped over its body, but a single breast exposed; the other a man depicting the “Majesty of Law” with a cloth covering his midsection.
You guessed it: Former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft.
Speaking to hundreds of Missouri Republicans attending the party's statewide Lincoln Days festivities last weekend, the one-time Missouri governor and senator said the president has been using security measures to protect freedoms, not to curb freedom.
"It is stunning to me that when the president of the United States, George W. Bush, simply says that we need to be able to monitor calls being made to terrorist territories, known geographies that are the source of terrorist activities, or known terrorists who are making calls into the United States … that some people see it as an infringement somehow, " Ashcroft said.
But how much credibility does the Bush first-term Attorney General have on the subject of protecting civil liberties and the rule of law?
Isn’t this the same guy who pressured Congress to hurriedly enact the USA Patriot Act, which gave astonishing powers to federal agencies to dramatically increase the government's surveillance, search-and-seizure and wiretapping authority?
Isn’t this the same guy who authorized DOJ officials to monitor the discussions that attorneys have with clients who are in federal custody, including those detained, but not charged with a criminal offense in violation of the First, Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Amendments to the Constitution?
Who rounded up and imprisoned over 1200 men of Middle Eastern descent based largely on pretextual immigration violations and refused to disclose their identity and location and the reason for their detention, while denying them fundamental due process rights? (The roundup produced some deportations, but NO criminal convictions.)
Who sought to question roughly 8,000 men of Middle Eastern descent, who were legal residents of the U.S., a flagrant form of racial profiling?
Who imposed a policy of selectively enforcing deportation orders against men from Middle Eastern countries?
Who helped draft the presidential order that created secret military tribunals to bypass the U.S. court system, contained significant due process violations, and allowed for the imposition of the death penalty?
Who initiated a project called Operation TIPS (Terrorist Information and Prevention System) to recruit and train a million volunteers (including postal workers, utility personnel and the like) in 10 cities who would be encouraged to report suspicious terrorist activity?
Who approved racial profiling guidelines that were little more than rhetorical smoke and mirrors, providing no rights or remedies and included a broad and largely undefined exception when ""national security" concerns came into play?
Who encouraged the 93 US Attorneys to lobby members of Congress who voted for an amendment to prohibit DOJ funds to be used to enforce ""sneak and peak"" warrants?
Who failed to bring any new cases against any police departments for police misconduct or abuse and attempted to change the definition of racial profiling to undermine future litigation?
Who killed a pilot program that provided federal money to pay for DNA testing to exonerate innocent inmates?
Who issued an order that certified federal agents to repeal the licenses of any doctor who prescribed lethal drugs for terminally ill patients?
Who further blurred the line between church and state by conducting daily sessions of prayer and Bible study at the DOJ, while being a major proponent of Bush's faith based initiative and working to create a legal theory that would withstand a constitutional challenge to direct federal funding of religious groups including churches, synagogues and mosques?
And who thumbed his nose at the First Amendment right to dissent by telling Congress that anyone who raised concerns about his actions would ""aid terrorists"" and ""give ammunition to America's enemies"?
In the wake of 9/11, it is understandable that the American people were traumatized and terrified that the next shoe would soon drop – on them. But John Ashcroft and his politically-appointed cronies at the Justice Department blatantly exploited that fear. They pandered to the worst instincts of the American people.
Let us not forget that it was John Ashcroft who hastily convened a taxpayer-financed satellite press conference while on a trip to Moscow to proclaim that the U.S. had arrested a man who planned to use a radiological “dirty bomb” to blow up apartment buildings in the U.S. (a charge that was nowhere to be found when American citizen Jose Padilla was finally put on trial after three years of virtually incommunicado imprisonment.)
And, speaking of cronies, let us note that Mr. Ashcroft’s loyalty to the president is not without its upside. Recently, the U.S. Attorney for the New Jersey, Christopher Christie, selected Ashcroft, his former boss, as one of four attorneys hired in a no-bid process to monitor five medical device manufacturers companies that New Jersey prosecutors had investigated for funneling kickbacks to orthopedic surgeons.
Ashcroft's contract will bring his legal and consulting firm between $27 million and $52 million for monitoring compliance at Indiana-based Zimmer Holdings, Inc.
So The Eagle will soar – all the way to the bank.
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