Greenwald on the Mystery of Gonzales’s and Addington’s Position on Destroying the Torture Tapes
A better-than-usual (which is saying a lot) Glenn Greenwald column that touches on what I believe to be a key part of the destroyed-torture-tapes story: The fact that the top legal advisors of the president and vice president were present at a meeting where an act of obstruction of justice was apparently discussed (an act that subsequently came to pass), and the public is being kept in the dark as to what action they advised: Oligarchical decay.
In case after case, our political establishment has adopted the “principle” that our most powerful actors are immune from the rule of law. And they’ve adopted the enabling supplemental “principle” that any information which our political leaders want to keep suppressed is — by definition, for that reason alone — information that is “classified” and should not be disclosed.
I think I’ll be making another one of my periodic calls to the office of my congressional representative, the otherwise-awesome Lois Capps, to encourage her to break with Nancy Pelosi on the subject of impeachment. Because loyalty to one’s party is one thing. But complicity with torture is the sort of thing that tends to look bad when reflects on it later in life.
January 2nd, 2008 at 12:25 pm
Greenwald has posted an update:
UPDATE: On a not unrelated note, the annual survey of worldwide privacy rights conducted by Privacy International and EPIC has been released for 2007, and the U.S. has been downgraded from “Extensive Surveillance Society” to “Endemic Surveillance Society,” the worst possible category there is for privacy protections, the category also occupied by countries such as China, Russia, Singapore and Malaysia. The survey uses a variety of objective factors to determine the extent of privacy protections citizens enjoy from their government, and the U.S. now finishes at the bottom for obvious reasons.
Evidence that we are becoming a lawless surveillance state is abundant. But let’s forget all of that and figure out how we can best micro-manage the internal affairs of Pakistan and Iraq and Russia and Iran so that we can preserve Freedom and Democracy for the world.
January 2nd, 2008 at 12:28 pm
Also, the NY Times published Sen’s Kean and Hamilton comments about the illegality of withholding the CIA tapes from their Commission:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/02/opinion/02kean.html?_r=1&ref=opinion&oref=slogin
January 4th, 2008 at 3:06 pm
It’s hard to overstate how daunting it feels to have a President who claims he doesn’t have to follow the law combined with a Congress that seems to agree.
At least it seems we’ll be able to stop the telecom immunity bill. The torture, rendition, warrantless spying, signing statements, and others might just be a lasting shame.
January 4th, 2008 at 8:47 pm
Steve,
This might be of more concern than all of the above: “Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act,” (HR 1955) . Paul Craig Roberts says it is plenty bad: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19002.htm
Apparently, your previous post could be considered subversive under that Act.
“Daunting” was your word; “pessimist” was mine – that is until I came across this:
http://georgewashington.blogspot.com/2008/01/way-out-of-catch-22.html
Damn the Tapes, It’s Time to Sing the Chorus “We Won’t Live in a Torture State” – Jill McLaughlin, World Can’t Wait Steering Committee
January 4th, 2008 at 8:55 pm
Steve,
This might be of more concern than all of the above: “Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act,” (HR 1955) . Google what Paul Craig Roberts has to say about it at informationclearinghouse …. apparently, your previous post could be considered subversive under that Act.
“Daunting” was your word; “pessimist” was mine – that is until I came across this:
http://www.georgewashington.blogspot.com/2008/01/way-out-of-catch-22.html
Damn the Tapes, It’s Time to Sing the Chorus “We Won’t Live in a Torture State” – Jill McLaughlin, World Can’t Wait Steering Committee