Also Also

SCOTUS Upholds Death w/ Dignity; Wyden Gullible

By now most of you have heard that by a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court has upheld Oregon's Death With Dignity Act, preserving the electorally determined right of Oregonians to end their own lives with proper medical assistance. The adventurous may peruse the opinions here (pdf); the rest of you can read the traditional media version any number of places (I chose Reuters).

I'm definitely pleased with the result, and also relieved to discover that angst about when Alito might be confirmed was unfounded. Even if he'd been on the Court already, Kennedy would still have cast the deciding majority vote.  Several thinkers have already posited the idea that Kennedy is now the new O'Connor, and while he has been fairly consistently rightward of O'Connor on many issues, you can never tell how he might view himself now that he's truly the powerbroker in the middle.

As I noted, there was some concern about whether Alito's confirmation would cause a rehearing of the case before the opinions could be released. In the course of investigating that concept, I spoke at length with George Eighmey, Executive Director of Compassion and Choices of Oregon. He graciously responded this morning with a statement on the ruling:

The US Supreme Court ruled today in favor of choice at the end of life. In a 6 to 3 decision, the court ruled the [previous] Attorney General’s attempt to intervene in affairs of the state’s aid-in-dying law has exceeded his authority.

"This is a victory for all Oregonians and in many ways for all citizens in the US," said George Eighmey, executive director of Compassion & Choices of Oregon. Eighmey said "this decision means Americans can live and die as free people, in dignity and according to their own values."

For now Oregon’s aid-in-dying law is safe, terminally ill patients, their families, physicians and pharmacist have no fear of persecution or prosecution from the federal government. But Compassion & Choices of Oregon will continue to defend attempts by Congress to overturn our law.

Good show. For another home-state angle on the ruling and how it fits into national concerns, BlueOregon reminds us that Senator Ron Wyden voted for Chief Justice Roberts, who formed one-third of the dissenting coalition on Gonzales v Oregon--apparently in part on this basis:

Supreme Court nominee John Roberts declared that, in cases dealing with end-of-life care, he would "start with the supposition that one has the right to be left alone," Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said after the two met for an hour Tuesday. ...

Roberts told Wyden that he would look closely at the legislative history of federal laws and would be careful not to strip states of powers they traditionally have held -- such as regulating the practice of medicine, Wyden said.

"You don't get the impression from how he answered that he'd let somebody stretch a sweeping statute like the Controlled Substances Act," Wyden said. ...

Roberts said the basic genius of the federal system is that it affords states the ability to approach problems in a way that is best suited to their different needs; imposing uniformity across the nation would stifle the intent of the founding fathers, Wyden said.

That was from back in August. Kari doesn't go much beyond floating the theorem that Wyden was misled, but I'd like to ask the Senator's office what their reaction is to Roberts' vote. I'll let you know what it is, if they're responsive. One can only hope that as Wyden deliberates another floor vote on a SCOTUS nominee, staffers have removed all songs on the Senator's iPod except "Won't Get Fooled Again."

--TJ

Nascent White Racialists Target Harvey Murders

And here I thought the worst part of the media attention over the murders of Bryan Harvey and his family in their homes on New Year's Day, was the news-channel hype and Court-TV speculation on whodunit.  I think the last thing Richmonders want to see is MSNBC going Holloway on the case.

Since the arrests, worse has apparently happened. After 10 days of positive but relatively quiet commentary on my Harvey lyrical retrospective, the increased traffic from the murder story began to ebb...until this morning, when it spiked again. And there were several new comments, from (apparently) different people. Where were they coming from?

Here. Are we expected to believe that in an effort to save himself, he tried to appease them by disavowing his heritage via House of Freaks music?

We will never know to what extent, if any, the "hate Whitey" attitude prevailing in the media fueled the rage of the killers, but we do know that Bryan Harvey's evocation of White racial guilt in one of his songs -- "White Folks' Blood" -- didn't help him or his wife or children when the animals got out their knives.
[  http://tinyurl.com/ex4ej ]

That tinyurl comes right back to Also Also. The premise appears to be that if the killers weren't drawn to their spree by media egging on their hatred, certainly their victims' revulsion towards Jim Crow and Klan activities was unproductive when facing the supposed backlash.

But the killers had to be on a race-based spree in the first place for this entire scenario to be even remotely relevant, and no evidence of that yet exists. This wasn't a serial killing, in which the suspect selects his victims with a purpose, usually in some kind of pattern. This was a spree, in which crime is essentially the goal and victims tend to come to it by virtue of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

But what makes this line of racial pursuit truly ridiculous are the other people allegedly killed by the suspects: Ashley Baskerville, her mother Mary Baskerville Tucker, and her stepfather Purcyell Tucker. They are, to steal the style, Black. So uh, you racialists--is this Black Guilt? Was the Hate Whitey media pushing them to kill three black people during the same spree? Did the color of their skin help them?

At this point the Vanguardians will simply point to the scattershot selection of statistics cited in their article, designed to create a eugenically-based theory of crime: black folks are just more violent. They can't help it, but they also take special unconscious pleasure in offing white people they come across in the midst of reflexively killing their own friends and families. Yeah, gotcha.

Sorry to bring up this whole little trip back to the 1930s, but this kind of absurd, paranoic and desperate attempt to make everything about the evils of miscegenation and integration is something that needs to be repeatedly exposed for the ignorant hatred that it is. One of the more laughable ironies is that for all the complaining that blacks and the media have to make everything about race, for these nuts it's literally true: no matter what, it all goes back to today's impurity of the races. Which always made me wonder--if it's black blood that's bad, doesn't mixing dilute it? So the answer is to so thoroughly mix it that nobody's got enough to make them violent, right? Yeah, I thought not.

To close, this kind of supremacist ranting always reminds me of Homer Stokes, the "Concerned Citizen" candidate in the Coen brothers movie O Brother, Where Art Thou?:

Homer Stokes is convinced not only that the Boys are black, but also that their fans' enthusiastic reception is based on ignorance of this fact. He hurries to shut down this "miscegenated" performance, and an-nounces,  "These boys is not white!" The crowd starts rumbling at this disruption, but he, confident of his "constitchency," blathers on.

 Gratifyingly, Stokes' fear that racial intermixing will rock the racist social order turns out to be well-founded: his constitchency literally rides him out of the hall on a rail to insure that the band finishes their song.

Let the band play on!

Oh, last thing. Lest you believe that some nationwide force of haters were targeting this story and my site, check out the "join up" page:

National Vanguard is being organized under the direction of members of the National Alliance Executive Committee and prominent National Alliance leaders, and we expect that our Board of Directors will be announced soon. Kevin Alfred Strom is acting as trustee for the Board and membership at this time.
National Vanguard
Post Office Box 5145
Charlottesville VA 22905

"being organized..."

--TJ

 

Bryan Harvey, Family Slain in Richmond

[I originally started this entry by detailing the coverage of this case, which has spread about the blogosphere and crime "enthusiasts" alike the last two days, but I lost a fair bit of work and had to restart...]

Here is the original Richmond Times Dispatch story from yesterday. The mean facts are that Bryan Harvey, 49, his wife Kathryn, 39, and his daughters Stella (9) and Ruby (4) were all bound and killed and their house in South Richmond set afire on New Year's Day. If you follow the sidebar trail from today's story on the evening vigil for the Harveys, you can find a string of stories on how active and important they were to the Richmond community, and how many people seemed to know and love them.

But rather than reiterate those stories  as I originally intended, I will tell you why I'm mentioning this sad but regional story (that's not even the region where I live anymore).  I lived in Richmond for 10 years during the 90s, and while I was not friends with the Harveys, I did know Bryan to an extent and was very familiar with his work. My son and his daughter are the same age, and were slated to attend the same school in the same class had we not moved the prior spring. My wife knew Kathryn in about the same fashion, through her store World of Mirth and as someone of mutual friends. We had other friends who knew them well, who had played with Bryan or worked with Kathryn, or who live just two blocks from the home in which they were slain, coming home on New Year's to find their neighborhood taped off.  So we were a part of the wide web of people whose lives had been favorably touched by the Harveys, and tonight Mrs. Joe and I feel a real sense of personal loss despite our mostly tangential acquaintance with them.

As you would discover if you read the sidebar articles at the T-D, they were simply sweet people,  and that would make their murders tragic enough. But their presence left singularly tangible, wonderful legacies that one can so rarely qualify. Bryan's band House of Freaks (with percussionist Johnny Hott) was my favorite Richmond band ever and among the best live shows I've seen in my lifetime. I own nearly everything they put out, including some vinyl. I played them and pimped them in my various radio gigs in Williamsburg and Richmond, and played them for friends to convert them.

As a Yankee transplant, Harvey's eminently Southern lyrics were a fascination to me, and they rang true (as this Southerner accords in his review of the HoF catalog). Some called it the New South Gothic, a rock style steeped in Southern cultural mythology that sometimes mocked the myths, sometimes lionized and sought comfort in them. I sympathized with that conflict of interest between modern sensibility, and the peaceful traditions that supported the imperfect ways of the past. There was also a tribal, almost Native American element to much of the earlier music, and as a percussionist I couldn't help but be drawn to a two-piece, guitar and drums band. They always made so much more sound than larger outfits, as if guided by the hand of Phil Spector. But it was Bryan's lyrical tapestry that drew me back again and again. With a hopeful modesty that has been proven unnecessary, he eulogized himself on Cakewalk with the song "Remember Me Well":

When I lay down my head
bound for heaven or hell
after all's said and done
please remember me well

You can dance on my grave
you can ring out the bells
you can drink to my health
but remember me well

Never fear, Bryan and Kathryn.

Update 1/4, 230p--
Welcome to those of you from sites where my sad nostalgia has been linked. I'm flattered that people from different sources were moved enough by my remembrances to cite them in their own writing. In turn, if you haven't come from one of those sites, let me direct you to them:

Blue Merle offers a rundown on who is following the story around the blogosphere, and shares the hunger for information and answers that many of us seem to be harboring.

Buttermilk and Molasses' John Sarvay (someone who I'm pretty sure I've met before, and who was heavily involved in the indie publishing scene while I lived there) notes the curious attachment to the Harveys among people who only vaguely knew them, such as myself.

Aliza Sherman knew Bryan perhaps better than many of us, given her admission of a near-romance that they shared long ago, and offers some touching thoughts about his gentle nature.  She also has a good set of links to news and blog articles about the murders.

F.T. Rea's SLANTblog also carries us back to the 80's, when Grace Street's music scene was king, and hints at Bryan's trepidations about doing what The Man wanted in order to become famous. He also reports on the vigil held last night at the Unitarian Church.

Steve Huff's Dark Side speculates at length on possible motives and implications, but cautions against getting carried away with what you read as 'truth' on the Net.

Don Harrison, former Catharsis writer (another of the indie publishing people, and someone who reviewed my old Richmond band Hassan Chop!) shares his remembrances of Bryan that go way back, and the sycophantic fandom it seems many of us had for him and House of Freaks--that we all tried to hide so we could have a normal, non-embarassing conversation with him.

Finally, if you knew the Harveys a lot, a little, or even not at all, there is a page up to memorialize the family and update people on the events to come celebrating their lives.

 

--TJ

(Reid) WYDEN Joins Feingold on PATRIOT Filibuster Threat

[crossposting for once FROM DailyKos and not to it...first time on the recommend list!]

RawStory is publishing an exclusive* that claims Sen Min Leader Reid will vote against cloture on the current PATRIOT USA Act agreement, effectively vowing to filibuster the bill:

 

Reid has told aides he will vote against cloture -- a Senate procedure which requires that 60 senators support a bill being brought before the Senate before it is brought to a final vote. In essence, voting against cloture means supporting a filibuster.

"Senator Reid has several concerns including the National Security letters, the library provision, and some of the habeas corpus aspects which have nothing to do with terrorism," an aide told RAW STORY.

Interesting to note that last line on habeas corpus--the current version of the bill already reflects some compromise between Lindsey Graham and Carl Levin, but still runs to the right of the Bingaman amendment largely restoring HC rights to Guantanamo prisoners. (If you recall, Oregon's Ron Wyden initially voted for the Graham bill restricting HC rights, but then voted for both the Bingaman and Graham/Levin bills after many of us pitched a fit. Much in the way that a subsequent defensive 3-and-out saves the cheese of a QB who turns the ball over, Reid may end up sparing Wyden lasting harm from his bizarre lapse.)

But in any case, whenever the party leader in one of the chambers signs on to blocking a bill, that's pretty big news. Reid continues to impress, picking battles that are both important and winnable.

Update 4pm--
Fresh from Sen Wyden's office, his statement on joining Reid and Feingold (and apparently Obama, Kerry and Republican Hagel) in opposing cloture:

U.S. Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) today announced his intention to vote against and support efforts to filibuster the conference report reauthorizing the USA Patriot Act, citing concerns about numerous provisions that could compromise Americans’ privacy rights that would be made permanent under the legislation.  Specifically, Wyden announced his intention today to oppose the legislation because it does not include sunsets for controversial powers and diminishes congressional oversight over the government’s use of these powers.

    “The current version of the report strikes the wrong balance between security and civil liberties and leaves Congress with inadequate oversight,” said Wyden. “Just as troubling is the inclusion of new language that will make it much more difficult for law-abiding Americans to defend themselves from possible Patriot Act abuses.  These unjustified changes do not make the Patriot Act a more effective tool for fighting terrorism and in fact, make it more susceptible to abuse.  I will vote against the current version of the legislation and support efforts to block its passage.”

    Specifically, Wyden cited strong concerns over a number of provisions contained in the conference report that would significantly compromise the privacy rights of law-abiding U.S. citizens.  These specific provisions include:

· A provision that makes permanent the ability of FBI agents to issue National Security Letters (NSL), or documents issued without the approval of a judge or grand jury, which allows the government to obtain sensitive personal information about law-abiding U.S. citizens;

· A requirement that requires anyone who receives a NSL to notify the FBI if s/he consults with an attorney and to identify the attorney to the FBI, potentially resulting in a significant blow to the right to counsel, something that exists nowhere else in law;

· A provision to impose criminal penalties on a NSL recipient who speaks out in violation of a NSL gag order, even if s/he believes his rights have been violated;

· A measure that fails to require a roving wiretap includes sufficient information to describe in detail the specific person to be wiretapped.

    While Wyden is an original co-sponsor of the Combat Met Act that was attached to conference report, he expressed his disappointment that this legislation was attached to the controversial PATRIOT Act.

     “As a cosponsor of the combat meth legislation, I am disappointed by the politicization of the meth tragedy in this fashion,” said Wyden. “I will continue to fight for the passage of the meth bill but not as a part of this badly flawed legislation.”   

*Andrew at NPI points out that while this is good news, it's also hardly an exclusive if Reid told AP about it last night. So take 'exclusive' with a grain of salt.

My Old Hometown: Kooks for iBooks!

In the wake of Peter Jennings' death last week, I heard an NPR interview from the 1990s in which he was asked about bias. The most important bias, he said, is not how it's written, but what gets chosen to be written. He gave his own example: because of his personal interest in HIV/AIDS, he conceded that ABC World News Tonight may have concentrated on the story more than other networks. His openness on the subject impressed me, along with his admonition not to reject stories out of hand based on bias, but simply to be aware as much as possible what those biases might be.

In that context, despite all the other stories out there to cover--many of them grander and more important--I'm going to talk about the near-riot in Richmond, VA over a surplus Apple iBook sale held by the Henrico School District. Some of you may know that I lived in Virginia for 27 years, and spent 10 of them in the Richmond area. I found many enjoyable things about the city, and I owe it an enduring debt of gratitude for being the hometown of the beautiful Mrs. Joe, but for any number of reasons I'm glad I've taken leave. I'm unable to find electronic affirmation, but it's my recollection that HL Mencken once said, "In Richmond I have found a happy dullness of intellect to be endemic," and that's pretty spot on.

Enough about me; to the story. After seeing the AP version of the story at MSNBC (and check out the video, although the name is Hen-RYE-co, not Hen-REE-co), I went to the homepage of the local Times-Dispatch. It can't be said that the T-D wasn't on top of the story from the beginning; there are no fewer than THIRTEEN separate stories charting the process, beginning with the decision to offer the four-year-old laptops to the general public at below-market rates. That turned into a selloff that gave Henrico residents first dibs, an aborted sale date one week prior that drew over 100 people despite the cancellation, and finally this:

The crowd started forming at 1:30 a.m. as Henrico residents and taxpayers began to arrive. By the time dawn broke, people on foot had formed a line half a mile long. Others waited in cars parked nearby or milled about the entrance to RIR. An official estimate put the crowd at 5,500. Other observers estimated a crowd size more than twice that.

When gates opened just before 7 a.m., the crowd had already grown surly, many in the crowd yelling to police officers who said they were just trying to keep people from "inciting a riot." When the gates swung open, the stampede -- literally -- began.

"We were just coming in the door and everyone was just pushing," said one J.R. Tucker High School student who was sitting on the ground with a bloody foot after getting caught in the rush. "We just fell down and everyone trampled on us."

Nice--or as the MSNBC talking head put it, "That's pathetic." In a sidebar column, the quotes echo the madness:

"The one thing it shows you is human nature," Colt said. "There are people out here who don't give a damn about anyone else."

...

But many of the gatecrashers -- male and female -- held firm at the front, or used the milling confusion to elbow closer to the door. Some boldly ignored pleas and accusations from those early-comers irked by this outrageous behavior.

If you said something to them about cutting in line, "they'd just look at you like you're retarded," Lisa Friedman said.

...

Donna Owen, the 16-year-old student, watched her grandfather suffer heat exhaustion for nothing.

But there's a lesson in there somewhere, said Donna's overheated grandmother, Janice Nicely.

"No matter what, follow the rules," Nicely said, crying a little as she hugged her frustrated granddaughter.

That's right, Donna nodded bravely. "It will all work out in the end," she said.

"But for now," she added, "I'm ticked."

I just can't imagine Portlanders stampeding each other for outdated Apples, although if they did it would probably be more out of boojie nostalgic kitsch than festering incivility....that's mostly a joke; I'm certainly not going to claim city superiority based on this incident. But there is a serious component to the story. Home penetration of computers is keyed on a number of factors, including race, age, geography, education and income. This national study is a few years out of date, but more recent partial followups regarding internet and broadband usage mirror the trend: if you're very old or very young, have little money and/or education, and live in the South, you're among the least likely to have a computer.

Now go look at that video again, and profile the folks running for the gates (in what looks like a fogstorm, but what I think is just early morning heat haze--ugh, not fond memories of that!). Who do you see? Old people andAfrican Americans, primarily.  It's no joke to these people--even the ones with less education aren't stupid; they know that owning a computer is quickly moving from luxurious advantage to economic imperative.

These are not collectors or connisseurs of cheap, vintage Apple equipment. They're people who have either been left behind in the computing revolution or (as the scalping indicates) those who are ready to cater to the first group and make a tidy profit. And it's worth mentioning that Henrico, while definitely pockmarked with areas of poverty, features much better schools overall than Richmond proper. If the entire Richmond Schools District even had 1,000 laptops to begin with, much less to sell because they were past their prime, I'd be shocked.

So think about that for a minute as you sit at your PC. Or maybe you don't own one either, and you're reading this at the library or from prison or an internet cafe'. I've been complaining about my crapass home setup for years now, having purchased it at least five years ago. But it works, it handles broadband just fine, and it keeps me ahead of the curve. For many people, the affordable opportunity to become a part of the digital revolution is worth peeing yourself in line over, or driving your car into a crowd for, or hitting people with a folding chair for.

If you've got a PC you no longer need, and you live in the Portland area, I urge you to think about donating it outright, or putting it through a refurbishing intermediary like FreeGeek.

--TJ

 

Airlines on the Lookout for Infant Terrorists

From the "but it says so in the computer!" files:

The government's lists of people who are either barred from flying or require extra scrutiny before being allowed to board airplanes grew markedly since the Sept. 11 attacks. Critics including the American Civil Liberties Union say the government doesn't provide enough information about the people on the lists, so innocent passengers can be caught up in the security sweep if they happen to have the same name as someone on the lists.

That can happen even if the person happens to be an infant like Sanden's daughter. (Children under 2 don't need tickets but Sanden purchased one for her daughter to ensure she had a seat.)

"It was bizarre," Sanden said. "I was hugely pregnant, and I was like, 'We look really threatening.'"

Sarah Zapolsky and her husband had a similar experience last month while departing from Dulles International Airport outside Washington. An airline ticket agent told them their 11-month-old son was on the government list.

They were able to board their flight after ticket agents took a half-hour to fax her son's passport and fill out paperwork.

"I understand that security is important," Zapolsky said. "But if they're just guessing, and we have to give up our passport to prove that our 11-month-old is not a terrorist, it's a waste of their time."

You might be quick to blame the TSA--and I suppose the relative carelessness with which some people are put onto the list is partially at fault--but on the ground, you've got to cite the airlines:

The Transportation Security Administration, which administers the lists, instructs airlines not to deny boarding to children under 12 — or select them for extra security checks — even if their names match those on a list.

But it happens anyway. Debby McElroy, president of the Regional Airline Association, said: "Our information indicates it happens at every major airport. The TSA has a "passenger ombudsman" who will investigate individual claims from passengers who say they are mistakenly on the lists. TSA spokeswoman Yolanda Clark said 89 children have submitted their names to the ombudsman. Of those, 14 are under the age of 2.

The most difficult thing about detaining babies at the checkpoint, I imagine, is that when you try to interrogate them they won't even try to explain themselves or produce better supporting identification. I just hope we aren't re-evaluating our methods in order to get these recalcitrant babies to talk. If they've got nothing to hide...

--TJ

 

Inside Baseball Day on Rove

The righteous energy of a good press gaggle meltdown still buzzing in the ears of the left blogosphere, today seemed to be less about indignation and more the jocular dismissiveness of someone who had gotten laid the night before--"Whassamatta, didn't the rest of youse see the Bush media machine caught like a deer in the headlights, getting flayed like a sturgeon on CSpan?" Bull Moose gets a line in that sets the tone:  "Short of a criminal indictment, Rove will remain in place. For Bush to get rid of Rove would be like Charlie McCarthy firing Edgar Bergen."

After Rove's lawyer tried to work the refs before Cooper's testimony tomorrow, bloggers like Digby went into rare fettle:

Gosh, is it ever too bad that whoever talked to Bob Novak didn't make it just as clear in their conversation (after they were done answering questions about welfare reform or maybe the latest news on stem cell research, of course) that they were only giving him this information to keep him from "going out on a limb."

Old Bob must be getting senile because he went right out and wrote a whole damned column about it, mentioning senior white house officials and everything. Man I'll bet whoever spoke to Bob is in the doghouse now, huh?

Here they were just trying to make sure the old duffer didn't embarrass himself by writing any supportive columns about Wilson (which you know he was planning to do) and look what happened. Now everybody thinks just because they had a few casual conversations on the run with a couple of reporters (only to to warn them off, of course) that this was a calculated effort to get the story out. What are the odds that two such different reporters would both get the story wrong in essentially the same way? Talk about bad luck. Do they all have egg on their faces or what?

The primary source material of the data well-throttled, Billmon looks over the dimunition meme on the right and writes Rove's political obituary by relying on the activist judiciary and rogue prosecutors of the federal system, long geared to stick it to The Man on behalf of the little guy (cough):

The Rovians, in other words, may be fghting the last war -- relying on the propaganda weapons that worked so well in a political campaign to try to defeat an opponent who doesn't have to worry about winning 270 electoral votes. You can defend yourself against an indictment or you can cop a plea. The one thing you can't do is spin it away.

Awhile back I wrote that truth no longer stands much of a chance in the political arena -- not when it's pitted against the best modern propaganda machine that money can buy. But the question now is whether the truth, armed with subpoena power and the federal rules of evidence, can still prevail in a court of law. By the time this particular legal battle is over, we may know the answer.

Taking on the recently repugnant Hindrocket at Powerline is The Light of Reason, a blog title that just oozes humility, but an analysis that justifiably embarrasses Powerline's daft reasoning.

More to the whodunit end of the story, TalkLeft tries to put together the puzzle pieces on who the "two senior administration officials" have to be: Scooter Libby and Karl Rove. They also make the interesting note about subpoeaned phone records from Air Force One during a 2003 trip to Nigeria. Why might this be important? For starters, it's a tiny list of people who have the ability to place calls from or to Air Force One. Secondly, the group that went to Nigeria included Colin Powell, who had with him a State Department brief that contained information about Valerie Plame, Joe Wilson's wife who worked at the CIA. Were Libby and Rove on that plane? Would it be an interesting coincidence that they passed along this information on a flight where the exact topic was discussed?

--TJ

Torture on Trial

US Admits Torture to UN

Washington has, for the first time, acknowledged to the United Nations that prisoners have been tortured at US detention centres in Guantanamo Bay, as well as Afghanistan and Iraq, a UN source said.

The acknowledgement was made in a report submitted to the UN Committee against Torture, said a member of the ten-person panel, speaking on on condition of anonymity.

'They are no longer trying to duck this and have respected their obligation to inform the UN,' the Committee member said.

'They they will have to explain themselves (to the Committee). Nothing should be kept in the dark,' he said.

UN sources said this is the first time the world body has received such a frank statement on torture from US authorities.

The Committee, which monitors respect for the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, is gathering information from the US ahead of hearings in May 2006.

Good for the US.  I think.  It depends.  Obviously this will be a thorough argument for Gonzalez's memo removing "enemy combatants," "detainees," from POW status.  An argument supported by those I refer to as the "legalese creeps."  I assume there's international law forbidding torture in general.  Or there should be, and there will be if there isn't.  Sorry to comment on something without the necessary details.  Somebody look into it for me.  I'm supposed to be working on other stories. 

It's not just the UN's Committee, which monitors respect for the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, seeking justice.

The ACLU and Human Rights First are suing too.

Four civil suits alleging that senior administration officials are directly complicit in the torture and abuse of detainees in the war on Iraq the broader "war on terrorism" are heading to federal court, after a judicial panel decided to consolidate and transfer them as one case to a Washington, DC district court.

The suits name Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld, General Ricardo Sanchez, General Janis Karpinski and Colonel Thomas Pappas as bearing ultimate responsibility for the mistreatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib, Guántanamo Bay and other US military-run prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan. The lawsuits were filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Human Rights First, both vocal critics of the Bush administration’s handling of detainees.

At first glance the ACLU and a human rights organization seem pretty toothless, and we can be sure the vehemence directed their way will be thick and angry.  That's good.  Smoke the unredeemable out of their caves.  We need a national debate on the topic removed from the banal treatment and misguided beliefs of those who support torture with incredibly inhumane and flawed arguments. 

A closer look suggests this suit may not be toothless after all.

The groups are joined as co-counsel in the lawsuit by Rear Admiral John D. Hutson (Ret. USN), former Judge Advocate General of the Navy; Brigadier General James Cullen (Ret. USA), former Chief Judge (IMA) of the U.S. Army Court of Criminal Appeals; and Bill Lann Lee, Chair of the Human Rights Practice Group at Lieff, Cabraser, Heimann & Bernstein, LLP and former Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights at the Department of Justice. Admiral Hutson and General Cullen are “of counsel” to Human Rights First.

Sounds like a group with a serious bite to me.  If only Congress would join the rising storm and get an inhouse investigation with hearings before the public.  Maybe they could focus on extraodinary rendition.  Italy is none to pleased with that program.

An Italian judge has ordered the arrests for the "kidnapping" of an Egyptian terrorism suspect in Milan. The Islamic cleric was flown to Egypt where he said he was tortured, judicial sources said on Friday.

"In the judge's order, it (the abduction) is clearly attributed to the CIA," a source said quoted on Reuters.

Italian prosecutors believe the operation was part of a controversial US anti-terror policy known as "extraordinary rendition". The policy involves seizing suspects and taking them to third countries without court approval.

Confirming the arrest warrant without mentioning the US intelligence agency, the prosecutors office said the 13 suspects were believed to be behind the abduction of imam Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, also known as Abu Omar, who was grabbed off a Milan street in February, 2003, and stuffed into a white van.

As the story goes, Italy was preparing to arrest Nasr anyway.  Instead he was estraordinarily rendered, by the CIA, into the hands of the Egyptians.  The only news from Egypt suggests he was severely abused.  Rumors allege his legs were broken in interrogation. 

-- Zap

We don't need no stinkin' border control

Too close to home

Mexico has arrested a British man of Arab extraction sought by US authorities in connection with the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, the Attorney General's office (PGR) said.

Amer Haykel was arrested in Todo Santos, a town in the northeastern Mexican state of Baja California, officials said.

"The PGR arrested ... Haykel, whom US authorities have linked to extremist groups presumably involved in the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York," the office said in a statement.

Officials said Haykel was arrested at the Todo Santos fire department, following "investigative and intelligence work and exchange of information with the US government."

The statement did not explain why Haykel was at the fire station and also failed to include the suspect's age or where his passport was issued, which would confirm his nationality.

"The suspect, who was born in Beirut and speaks fluent Arabic, English, French and Spanish, was turned over to immigration authorities and taken to Mexico City to determine his legal status," the PGR statement said.

On June 15, Pakistani national Arif Ali Durrani, 55, was also arrested in Baja California in response to a US warrant on charges he was smuggling anti-aircraft missiles. Durrani was officially repatriated to Pakistan via Los Angeles.

(emph. mine)

As I have reported before, these aren't your typical human cargo, heroin, cocaine and marijuana smuggling banditos and gang bangers anymore.  There is nothing racist about closing our southern border.  The very unfortunate result of our open border policy very easily could be tragedy that validates the Minutemen, who are racist.  That would be a shame.

There are conflicting reports about which Todos Santos was home to the arrest.  The above accounting says it was Todos Santos in northeastern Baja.  There is a small village of Todos Santos in Baja Norte, and that truly is too close to home, very near one of the easiest border crossings in California.  However, other reports have the arrest being made in Baja Sur, where the lovely ocean front town of Todos Santos is being overrun by the anti-Cabo tourist industry.  It's quite a trek from there to California.  I'll be following this one closely and keeping a watchful eye out for connections to Mara Salvatrucha and the border crime syndicate.  The fire station connection is intriguing as well. 

-- Zap

Renaming the FBI

The FBI is the Federal Bureau of something.  We're just no longer sure what the something is.  Other than being sure the something is not Investigation.  At least not in relationship to investigating terrorism.  Of course, there are those who never thought the war on terror was a "police action," something that required investigation; and of course, they were always wrong, ignorant of the enemy.

So bombs away.  Hide your dishes and your daughters innocent bystanders.  We're "fighting" terrorism, not "investigating" it. 

Too many leads to be bothered with:

A US Senate panel is probing allegations that the FBI's office in Riyadh neglected thousands of leads related to the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Although the Federal Bureau of Investigation sent reinforcements shortly after the attacks, "it appears that the bureau's team never got on top of the thousands of leads flowing in from the US and Saudi governments," Time magazine reported Sunday.

It "appears" they didn't follow up on leads?  More:

An FBI supervisor sent to Riyadh nearly a year after the attacks found the Riyadh office in disarray with a backlog of documents piled up in a mountain of papers, it said.

Since the embassy must be able to destroy sensitive documents within 15 minutes during a hostile takeover, the supervisor ordered the destruction of hundreds or even thousands of pages, including many related to the September 11 probe, an FBI briefer told Congress, according to Time.

The FBI told Time the shredded material was "duplicative" or "only informational." But the Judiciary Committee's letter cites reports that some of the documents "had not been translated or reviewed," the magazine said.

Perhaps the FBI could have used a few of the dozens of highly trained specialists--Arabic speakers-- who were fired by the Pentagon for destroying the moral fabric of the armed forces-- in other words, for being gay.  The FBI certainly could have used some help in Saudi Arabia after 9-11.  They were swamped, buried with leads, scraps of information they didn't have the manpower to pursue or even interpret. 

Perhaps, the FBI wasn't paying attention when Rumsfeld stressed the intelligence battle:

Mr. Rumsfeld, en route to his first stop in Saudi Arabia, said Wednesday that the goal is to find out exactly where Osama bin Laden and his hard-core supporters are hiding in the vastness of Afghanistan.

"It's not going to be a cruise missile or a bomber that's going to be the determining factor," he told reporters on his plane, speaking only in the broadest terms about preparations for military action.

"It's going to be a scrap of information from some person in some country that's been repressed by a dictatorial regime. That's going to enable us to pull this network up by its roots and end it."

Mr. Rumsfeld hinted that the U.S. military has some information on Mr. bin Laden's whereabouts but does not know his precise location.

(emph. added)

That was October 4th, 2001.  There are so many questions, and there are several answers:   Incompetent, Irresponsible, Ignorant.  Any of these "I" words seem a better description for the FBI.  It's astounding that we're shredding scraps of information about the 9-11 attacks.  It's embarrassing.  The President is quoted in the same article:

"People need to be able to look us in the eye and know that when we say that we're in this for the long run, that we're going to find terrorists and bring them to justice, we mean it," Mr. Bush said.

How can he look people in the eye and continue this charade about being tough on terror?  He's a gift to extremists.  Some of us know it, and all of the extremists know it.  He didn't have the resolve for which he is known.  Not with the temptation of a bigger, more impressive, political capital producing, far less important, war in Iraq.  He took his eye off the ball, off the terrorists.  He betrayed his nation, betrayed my memory of 9-11, and particularly, he betrayed the victims and their survivors.  Remember Bush discussing the hunt for bin Laden?

"I don’t know where he is. Nor — you know, I just don’t spend that much time on him really, to be honest with you. I....I truly am not that concerned about him."

The Left loves to flaunt that quote.  Kerry paraphrased it in debate, and Bush denied he'd ever said any such thing.  Some thought he lied.  I figured he forgot how little he really cared about 9-11 compared to Iraq.  Then, in debate, the truth hurt.  It was damning, and he went into denial, honest denial.  Even his handlers had failed to prepare him.  Unfortunately, the public laughed at Kerry for making such a crazy insinuation about their warrior president.  Even though Kerry was right, even though the truth had been publicized for over two years.  They didn't know the truth.  Didn't want to know.  So they laughed.  But it's Bush's other spin, the way he explained the statement that really bugged me.

"We haven't heard much from him. And I wouldn't necessarily say he's at the center of any command structure. And, again, I don't know where he is," Bush said during the 2002 news conference. "I'll repeat what I said. I truly am not that concerned about him. I know he is on the run.

  "I was concerned about him when he had taken over a country," Bush continued. "I was concerned about the fact that he was basically running Afghanistan and calling the shots for the Taliban. But once we set out the policy and started executing the plan, he became - we shoved him out more and more on the margins. He has no place to train his Al Qaeda killers anymore."

There is plenty of space to train al Qaeda, and that space has been expanding through the sympathetic, far right Islamic world, which cannot help but see al Qaeda's message vindicated through the actions of a war dishonestly named the Global War on Terror.  Osama bin Laden never took over a country.  He was not basically running Afghanistan.  That's just how flawed and limited the President's world view is.  It's all about overthrowing nation states.  It doesn't matter if the ideas supporting this are utterly false, or if they in fact further empower those who sponsor terror and despise the US. 

I'm criticizing the President in a post about the FBI because I believe the old Greek saying has merit:  A fish stinks from the head down.  I've experienced this while dealing with many businesses.  Research would validate it in analyzing a number of governments, and it certainly applies to the war on terror.  The whole thing stinks from the head down.  That's why we get these kind of reports on the smelly state of the FBI.

The FBI vowed to build national expertise for fighting terrorists after the Sept. 11 attacks, but the supervisors who crafted that war plan now say Middle East and terrorism experience haven't been important for choosing their agents. [...]

The lawsuit, brought against the FBI by one of its most accomplished pre-Sept. 11 terror-fighting agents, provides sharp contrasts between the bureau's public promises and the reality of how it has chosen the agents who run its war on terrorism.

In hundreds of pages of sworn testimony obtained by The Associated Press, senior FBI managers argued repeatedly that Middle East and anti-terrorism experience aren't required for promotion and that they see little difference between solving a traditional crime and a terror attack.

"A bombing case is a bombing case," said Dale Watson, the FBI's terrorism chief in the two years after Sept. 11, 2001. "A crime scene in a bank robbery case is the same as a crime scene, you know, across the board."

Swell.  So, investigating a crime requires no expertise beyond basic CSI, and expertise in specific fields is unnecessary.  What about preventing terrorism?  Would a little expertise in the field come in handy, maybe prevent the need for CSI by preventing crime scenes?  More:

Watson couldn't describe the difference between Shiites and Sunnis, the two major groups of Muslims. "Not technically, no," Watson answered when asked the question.

Bald, the FBI's current anti-terrorism chief, said his first training in that area came "on the job" when he moved to headquarters to oversee anti-terrorism strategy two years ago. when asked about his grasp of Middle Eastern culture and history, he replied: "I wish that I had it. It would be nice."

FBI agent Bassem Youssef has questioned under oath many of the bureau's top leaders, including Director Robert Mueller and his predecessor, Louis Freeh, in an effort to show he was passed over for top counterterrorism jobs despite his expertise. Testimony from his lawsuit was recently sent to Congress.

Those who have held the bureau's top terrorism-fighting jobs since Sept. 11 often said in their testimony that they — and many they have promoted since — had no significant anti-terrorism or Middle East experience.

What is this?  Just climbing the old ladder of bureaucracy?  The Peter Principle vs. al Qaeda?  It certainly isn't a serious counterterrorism organization, and it doesn't sound like a very professional investigative organization.  It's as if the testimony was an homage to the Greek  saying:

Watson testified he could not recall a single meeting in the aftermath of Sept. 11 in which FBI leaders discussed the type of skills or training needed for counterterrorism.

Youssef's lawyer, Steve Kohn, pressed further.

"What skill sets would they need to better identify, penetrate and/or prevent a future Osama bin Laden-style terrorist attack?" Kohn asked.

Watson answered: "They would need to understand the attorney general guidelines for counterterrorism and counterintelligence investigation."

"Anything else?" the lawyer inquired.

"No," Watson answered.

It defies parody. 

-- Zap

Additional reading:

FBI officials lack experience

Still short on heterosexual linguists

Who blew the leads?