Obama attempts to block release of 'torture' photos

[Park Life 71]

Just weeks after announcing he would make the images public, administration officials said the president had told his legal advisers that releasing the photos would endanger troops.

The change of heart is thought to have come after senior military officials gave warning the release could cause a backlash against troops.

 

Mr Obama now wants the issue to go back to court, although federal appeals judges have already ruled the photos should be released.

The proposed release of the photographs had threatened to reignite the scandal surrounding Abu Ghraib prison in 2004.

 

It came after a legal action by the American Civil Liberties Union and followed a political firestorm over alleged torture of detainees under President George W. Bush.

Some of the photographs, which had been due to be released before May 28, were said to show American service personnel humiliating prisoners.

The images relate to more than 400 separate cases involving alleged prisoner abuse between 2001 and 2005.

Descriptions of some of the alleged abuse photographs include:

* A prisoner pushed up against a wall as military guards or interrogators appear to threaten to sexually assault him with a broomstick

 

 

Get your finger out Obi.

[Fop 1]

Politicians promise the moon on a stick, usually you are lucky if they deliver a lollipop when they do.

 

 

In all honesty Obama was probably at best daft and at worse cynical to promise that, as clearly releasing them will basically have an american death toll (which is always going to be a bad call/no win either way).

 

 

 

 

 

I'd rather the UK government fully publish the pics of what was done to those British military police in Basra really, it would put someone waving a broomstick at someone into rather more context.

[Guest alex]

Get your finger out Obi.

Wahey!

[Fop 1]

NSFO

[Park Life 71]

NSFO

 

 

"Did not conform to the army manual."

[Fop 1]

This will probably be more interesting than those photos anyway.

[ewerk 31600]

And now he's re-starting the military trials, way to u-turn.

[ChezGiven 0]

French press reckons this tarnishes his reputation.

 

I say he should do what he needs to do to ensure he can advance the more important elements of his agenda.

[Park Life 71]

French press reckons this tarnishes his reputation.

 

I say he should do what he needs to do to ensure he can advance the more important elements of his agenda.

 

Expand?

[Fop 1]

And now he's re-starting the military trials, way to u-turn.

 

He's continuing loads of "Bush's" policy..... but the thing is a lot of "Bush's" policy wasn't actually so much his policy or even Republican policy, but rather US policy (which is why demonising Bush, as much as he was, was a bit silly - it was never the case that getting rid of Bush or even his administration was going to change everything).

 

Obama played the "change" card to death in getting elected (and why not, it was one of the main things that won him it), but Fop suspects he knew the reality was he'd end up doing as much or more the same than he would ever change.

[snakehips 0]

Just weeks after announcing he would make the images public, administration officials said the president had told his legal advisers that releasing the photos would endanger troops.

The change of heart is thought to have come after senior military officials gave warning the release could cause a backlash against troops.

 

Mr Obama now wants the issue to go back to court, although federal appeals judges have already ruled the photos should be released.

The proposed release of the photographs had threatened to reignite the scandal surrounding Abu Ghraib prison in 2004.

 

It came after a legal action by the American Civil Liberties Union and followed a political firestorm over alleged torture of detainees under President George W. Bush.

Some of the photographs, which had been due to be released before May 28, were said to show American service personnel humiliating prisoners.

The images relate to more than 400 separate cases involving alleged prisoner abuse between 2001 and 2005.

Descriptions of some of the alleged abuse photographs include:

* A prisoner pushed up against a wall as military guards or interrogators appear to threaten to sexually assault him with a broomstick

 

 

Get your finger out Obi.

 

"...were said to show...."

 

"...appear to threaten to sexually assault him..."

 

 

We should ask Piers Morgan what his thoughts on this are.

[ChezGiven 0]

French press reckons this tarnishes his reputation.

 

I say he should do what he needs to do to ensure he can advance the more important elements of his agenda.

 

Expand?

 

Whats at issue? His principles are clear, the photos dont change anything materially. By publishing them, he would have been roundly critiicised by the military and social conservatives, thus potentially losing him some of that middle right ground he has a (tenuous) hold on.

 

There are bigger issues at stake than these photos, especially since his stance on the broader moral question is clear.

[Fop 1]

French press reckons this tarnishes his reputation.

 

I say he should do what he needs to do to ensure he can advance the more important elements of his agenda.

 

Expand?

 

Whats at issue? His principles are clear, the photos dont change anything materially. By publishing them, he would have been roundly critiicised by the military and social conservatives, thus potentially losing him some of that middle right ground he has a (tenuous) hold on.

 

There are bigger issues at stake than these photos, especially since his stance on the broader moral question is clear.

 

 

The French media must have been reading that BBC page yesterday then.

[Happy Face 29]

I can't embed .png images, so you'll get a far better read if you follow the link below, but...

 

Initially, it should be emphasized that yet again, it is not the Congress or the establishment media which is uncovering these abuses and forcing disclosure of government misconduct. Rather, it is the ACLU (with which I consult) that, along with other human rights organizations, has had to fill the void left by those failed institutions, using their own funds to pursue litigation to compel disclosure. Without their efforts, we would know vastly less than we know now about the crimes our government committed.

 

Before saying anything about the implications of this Report, I want to post some excerpts of what CIA interrogators did. Every American should be forced to read and learn this in order to know what was done in their names:

 

Threat of execution

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_MnYI3_FRbbQ/SpMW...s1600-h/ig8.png

 

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_MnYI3_FRbbQ/SpMY...s1600-h/ig2.png

 

Threats to rape detainee's female relatives in front of him

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_MnYI3_FRbbQ/SpMY...s1600-h/ig3.png

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_MnYI3_FRbbQ/SpMY...s1600-h/ig4.png

 

"Buttstroking" with rifles and knee kicks:

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_MnYI3_FRbbQ/SpMW.../s400/ig-10.png

 

More "convincing and poignant" waterboarding of the type we prosecuted Japanese war criminals for using:

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_MnYI3_FRbbQ/SpMY...s1600-h/ig1.png

 

The IG Report also documents numerous other abuses that have been documented by prior OLC memos, including having waterboarded detainees 82 and 183 times; hanging them by their arms until interrogators thought their shoulders might be dislocated; stepping on their ankle shackles to cause severe bruising and pain; putting them in a diapers and leaving them doused with water on cold concrete floors in cold temperatures to induce hypothermia, etc. Some of the numerous deaths of detainees during interrogations were also discussed.

 

For all the talk about how clearly legal the CIA methods were -- or, at worst, that they mistakenly believed in "good faith" that it was legal -- the reality is that even those who participated in the program worried that their actions were criminal, would subject them to prosecution, and would destroy the reputation of the CIA:

 

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_MnYI3_FRbbQ/SpMm...1600-h/ig-e.png

 

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_MnYI3_FRbbQ/SpMl...1600-h/ig-b.png

 

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_MnYI3_FRbbQ/SpMn...k/s400/ig-f.png

 

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_MnYI3_FRbbQ/SpMo...0/s400/ig-g.png

 

Perhaps worst of all, the Report notes that many of the detainees who were subjected to this treatment were so treated due to "assessments that were unsupported by credible intelligence" -- meaning there was no real reason to think they had done anything wrong whatsoever. As has been known for quite some time, many of the people who were tortured by the United States were completely innocent -- guilty of absolutely nothing.

 

Manifestly, none of this happened by accident. As the IG Report continuously notes, all of these methods were severe departures from long-standing CIA guidelines (if not practices). This all occurred because the officials at the highest levels of the U.S. Government pronounced that this was permissible, the protections of the Geneva Conventions were "quaint," obsolete and inapplicable, and the U.S. was justified in doing anything and everything in the name of fighting Terrorists. As stomach-turning as these individual acts of sadism are, it is far worse to consider that only low-level interrogators will suffer consequences while those who were truly responsible -- the criminally depraved leaders and lawyers who ordered and authorized it -- will be protected.

 

The historical record of what the U.S. did during this period is clear and growing. The only question that remains is what, if anything, we will do now that we are seeing the full picture.

 

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/

 

You begin to understand how Germans were able to overlook the atrocities carried out in their name in the past when we sit idly by and let those we elected to do this stuff off the hook.

[Fop 1]

You begin to understand how Germans were able to overlook the atrocities carried out in their name in the past when we sit idly by and let those we elected to do this stuff off the hook.

 

Elected people, you can't live with em....

 

 

Gaza Islamist leader dies in raid

Abdel-Latif Moussa was surrounded by armed supporters in the mosque

 

The leader of a radical Islamist group involved in a shootout with Hamas in Gaza is one of at least 24 people killed in the raid, reports say.

 

Abdul-Latif Moussa died in an explosion, officials said, but it was not clear whether he blew himself up.

 

On Friday Hamas, which controls Gaza, launched a bloody crackdown on the group, Jund Ansar Allah, after it declared an "Islamic emirate".

 

Scores were injured in the attack, on a mosque in Rafah, near the Egypt border.

 

Hamas also stormed Abdul-Latif Moussa's house.

 

'Hasty declaration'

 

The fighting lasted seven hours and ended at about midnight on Friday.

 

 

JUND ANSAR ALLAH

Name means "Soldiers of the Followers of God"

Member of Salafist movement, advocating return to the type of Islam practised at the time of the Prophet Muhammad

Wants to establish Islamic emirate throughout Middle East

Calls for strict enforcement of Sharia law, says Hamas is too liberal

Several hundred sympathisers in southern Gaza

 

 

 

 

Followers of the group said Abdul Latif-Moussa blew himself up in a crowd of Hamas police, but Hamas has denied this.

 

Six Hamas fighters, including a senior commander, and one civilian died. The rest of those killed were from Jund Ansar Allah.

 

About 120 people were injured, with some in a critical condition, the BBC's Rushdi Abu Alouf says.

 

The Hamas spokesman, Tahir al-Nunu, said: "We hold Abdul-Latif Moussa and his followers fully responsible for what happened because of his hasty declaration during Friday prayers of a so-called 'Islamic emirate'."

 

The Jund Ansar Allah (Soldiers of the Followers of God) is thought to be inspired by al-Qaeda.

 

The battle lasted several hours

 

 

Mr Nunu said: "Anyone who belongs to this group has to immediately hand himself and his weapons over to the Palestinian police and security forces."

 

Another Hamas official, Sami Abu Zuhri, branded the cleric's speech "wrong thinking".

 

Sealed off

 

Hamas fighters on Friday fired rocket-propelled grenades at Ibn-Taymiyah mosque, where at least 100 Jund Ansar Allah supporters were holed up.

 

 

These declarations [of an Islamic emirate] are aimed towards incitement against the Gaza Strip

Ismail Haniya,

leader of Hamas in Gaza

The entire neighbourhood was sealed off as the shooting continued after dark - in what was one of the most violent incidents in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip since an Israeli offensive in December and January.

 

Abdul-Latif Moussa and his armed supporters had sworn to fight to the death rather than hand over authority of the mosque to Hamas.

 

During his own Friday sermon, the leader of Hamas in Gaza, Ismail Haniya, dismissed Mr Moussa's comments.

 

"These declarations [of an Islamic emirate] are aimed towards incitement against the Gaza Strip and an attempt at recruiting an international alliance against the Gaza Strip.

 

"And we warn those who are behind these Israeli Zionist declarations: the Gaza Strip only contains its people."

 

 

Jund Ansar Allah gained some prominence two months ago when it staged a failed attack on horseback on a border crossing between Gaza and Israel.

 

The group is very critical of Hamas, which seized control of Gaza in 2007, accusing the Islamist group of not being Islamist enough.

 

Hamas has cracked down hard on al-Qaeda-inspired groups in the past, the BBC's Middle East correspondent Katya Adler says.

 

Hamas is concerned they may attract more extremist members, and has forbidden anyone except what it describes as Hamas security personnel from carrying weapons in Gaza, our correspondent says.

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/8202746.stm

 

 

Hamas crackdown on Gaza challengers

 

Hamas - the group which controls Gaza - has clashed with a radical Islamist group, launching a raid on a mosque in which its spiritual leader died. The BBC's Jo Floto in Jerusalem explains what lies behind Hamas's actions.

Abdel-Latif Moussa, Jund Ansar Allah's spiritual leader, died in a Hamas raid

 

There were reports coming from Gaza this week that Hamas was losing patience with the Jund Ansar Allah - or Soldiers of the Followers of God.

 

An unsuccessful attempt was apparently made to detain the military commander of the group, a man going by the nickname of Abu Adbullah al-Muhajir.

 

Hamas security men approached him as he was leaving a mosque in Rafah. According to a source close to Hamas, Muhajir and his bodyguards threatened to detonate explosive belts they were wearing, and escaped.

 

The group let it be known that this Friday its spiritual leader, Abdul Latif Moussa, would declare an "Islamic emirate".

 

Hamas told the group to cancel the prayers, something it refused to do. Attempts at negotiation failed and Hamas decided to end the rise of Jund Ansar Allah.

 

Militants on horseback

 

The group came to prominence in June, when Jund Ansar Allah claimed responsibility for an attack on Nahal Oz, one of the crossing points from Gaza into Israel.

 

It was the most serious attack on an Israeli military position since the end of the Gaza offensive in January. The group used weapons, vehicles with explosives, and unusually, militants on horseback.

 

JUND ANSAR ALLAH

Name means Soldiers of the Followers of God

Member of Salafist movement, advocating return to the type of Islam practised at the time of the Prophet Muhammad

Wants to establish Islamic emirate throughout Middle East

Calls for strict enforcement of Sharia law, says Hamas is too liberal

Several hundred sympathisers in southern Gaza

 

Profile: Jund Ansar Allah

 

The mounted attack was a failure. The Israeli army responded with machine guns, tanks and attack helicopters.

 

The material posted by the group on the internet is certainly inspired by al-Qaeda. It shares much of the iconography, language, music and discourse of other Jihadi groups.

 

In a recent declaration purportedly issued by the Jund Ansar Allah, Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman Zawahiri, are mentioned by name.

 

The group maintains that a return to a purer form of Islam is needed and that Sharia law must be implemented, and rejects democracy as un-Islamic.

 

But although it is easy to draw the ideological and linguistic connection, it is much harder to establish whether the group receives direction, money or resources from elsewhere.

 

Given that Gaza remains largely closed off from the rest of the world, that would be difficult - although not impossible.

 

The smuggling of weapons into Gaza is almost entirely controlled by Hamas. The fact that the group appears to have been relatively well-armed would point to at least some of its members being former militants from other groups, including Hamas.

 

In terms of numbers, one source estimates about 300 men, based in Khan Younis and Rafah, at the southern end of the Gaza Strip, but it is difficult to know for sure.

Uncompromising message

 

The Jund Ansar Islam is one of a handful of radical al-Qaeda-inspired groups to have appeared in the Gaza Strip in recent years.

Map of Gaza

 

The most prominent of these until now was Jaish al-Islam, who participated in the raid which captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in 2006 and claimed responsibility for the kidnapping of BBC's Gaza correspondent Alan Johnston in 2007.

 

The groups may have been used as proxies by other militant groups or powerful clans, but all have managed to attract young Gazans with a more radical interpretation of Islam, and with an uncompromising message of how to fight Israel and its "Crusader" allies.

 

For those young men who have become increasingly radicalised in Gaza, the established parties and militant groups are seen to have failed.

 

Since Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip two years ago, these groups have been seen as a challenge to its authority, and Hamas has stamped on them hard.

 

But dealing with them has presented Hamas with a real problem. Hamas's full title is the Islamic Resistance Movement, and it faces opposition from within its own membership and support base if it cracks down too hard on groups for either engaging in acts of resistance against Israel or activities presented as Islamic.

 

This week Hamas decided that it had had enough.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/8203362.stm

 

 

Is the "war on terror" ok if it is terrorists waging it? (ironically of course Hamas won much less of the percentage vote than Bush did )

[Happy Face 29]

David Miliband, the foreign secretary, acted in a way that was harmful to the rule of law by suppressing evidence about what the government knew of the illegal treatment of Binyam Mohamed, a British resident who was held in a secret prison in Pakistan, the high court has ruled.

 

In a devastating judgment, two senior judges roundly dismissed the foreign secretary's claims that disclosing the evidence would harm national security and threaten the UK's vital intelligence-sharing arrangements with the US.

 

In what they described as an "unprecedented" and "exceptional" case, to which the Guardian is a party, they ordered the release of a seven-paragraph summary of what the CIA told British officials – and maybe ministers – about Ethiopian-born Mohamed before he was secretly interrogated by an MI5 officer in 2002.

 

"The suppression of reports of wrongdoing by officials in circumstances which cannot in any way affect national security is inimical to the rule of law," Lord Justice Thomas and Mr Justice Lloyd Jones ruled. "Championing the rule of law, not subordinating it, is the cornerstone of democracy."

 

The summary is a CIA account given to British intelligence "whilst [Mohamed] was held in Pakistan ... prior to his interview by an officer of the Security Service", the judges said. The officer, known only as Witness B, is being investigated by the Metropolitan police for "possible criminal wrongdoing".

 

The seven-page document will not be released until the result of an appeal is known. However, the judges made clear their anger at the position adopted by Miliband, MI5, and MI6 in their hard-hitting judgment.

 

An explanation was needed, they said, about "what the United Kingdom government actually knew about what was alleged to be cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or torture, in particular what Witness B knew before he interviewed [Mohamed] ... in Pakistan". The judges added that it was important to explain what MI5 "and others knew when they provided further information to the United States to be used in the interrogation".

 

There was a "compelling public interest" to disclose what Miliband wanted to suppress, they said; there was nothing in the seven-paragraph summary that had anything remotely to do with "secret intelligence".

 

"In our view, as a court in the United Kingdom, a vital public interest requires, for reasons of democratic accountability and the rule of law in the United Kingdom, that a summary of the most important evidence relating to the involvement of the British security services in wrongdoing be placed in the public domain in the United Kingdom."

 

The judges sharply criticised the way Miliband and his lawyers tried to persuade the Obama administration to back the suppression of the CIA material. Lawyers acting for Mohamed, the Guardian and other media organisations pointed out that Obama had himself set up an inquiry into CIA practices and published details of their interrogation techniques.

 

In the end, Miliband had to rely for help on a CIA letter to MI6 claiming that disclosure of the document would harm the security of the US and UK.

 

The judges made it clear they did not believe the claim was credible. "The public interest in making the paragraphs public is overwhelming," they said.

 

The document would show what Witness B – an MI5 officer who interrogated Mohamed in Pakistan in 2002 – knew about Mohamed's condition before he questioned him incognito in a Pakistani jail, the judges said.

 

The CIA secretly flew Mohamed to Morocco, Afghanistan and then Guantánamo Bay, the court has heard. The judges criticised MI5 and MI6 for the belated disclosure of documents that revealed an MI5 officer was in Morocco when Mohamed was held there in a secret jail.

 

Miliband's lawyers continued to argue that a number of passages in the judges' ruling must be redacted as well as the seven-paragraph CIA document.

 

Jonathan Evans, the head of MI5, admitted in a speech at Bristol University on Thursday that the Security Service had been "slow to detect the emerging pattern of US practice in the period after 9/11".

 

"But it is important to recognise that we do not control what other countries do, that operational decisions have to be taken with the knowledge available, even if it is incomplete, and that when the emerging pattern of US policy was detected, necessary improvements were made."

 

He repeated the mantra that MI5 "does not torture people, nor do we collude in torture or solicit others to torture people on our behalf".

 

However, he said the situation posed a dilemma. "Given the pressing need to understand and uncover al-Qaida's plans, were we to deal, however circumspectly, with those security services who had experience of working against al-Qaida on their own territory, or were we to refuse to deal with them, accepting that in so doing we would be cutting off a potentially vital source of information that would prevent attacks in the west?

 

"In my view we would have been derelict in our duty if we had not worked, circumspectly, with overseas liaisons who were in a position to provide intelligence that could safeguard this country from attack. I have every confidence in the behaviour of my officers in what were difficult and, at times, dangerous circumstances".

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/oct/1...idence-miliband

 

This is scalpel to the testacles stuff.

[Happy Face 29]

The Obama administration has, yet again, asserted the broadest and most radical version of the "state secrets" privilege -- which previously caused so much controversy and turmoil among loyal Democrats (when used by Bush/Cheney) -- to attempt to block courts from ruling on the legality of the government's domestic surveillance activities. Obama did so again this past Friday -- just six weeks after the DOJ announced voluntary new internal guidelines which, it insisted, would prevent abuses of the state secrets privilege. Instead -- as predicted -- the DOJ continues to embrace the very same "state secrets" theories of the Bush administration -- which Democrats generally and Barack Obama specifically once vehemently condemned -- and is doing so in order literally to shield the President from judicial review or accountability when he is accused of breaking the law.

 

The case of Shubert v. Bush is one of several litigations challenging the legality of the NSA program, of which the Electronic Frontier Foundation is lead coordinating counsel. The Shubert plaintiffs are numerous American citizens suing individual Bush officials, alleging that the Bush administration instituted a massive "dragnet" surveillance program whereby "the NSA intercepted (and continues to intercept) millions of phone calls and emails of ordinary Americans, with no connection to Al Qaeda, terrorism, or any foreign government" and that "the program monitors millions of calls and emails . . . entirely in the United States . . . without a warrant" (page 4). The lawsuit's central allegation is that the officials responsible for this program violated the Fourth Amendment and FISA and can be held accountable under the law for those illegal actions.

 

Rather than respond to the substance of the allegations, the Obama DOJ is instead insisting that courts are barred from considering the claims at all. Why? Because -- it asserted in a Motion to Dismiss it filed on Friday -- to allow the lawsuit to proceed under any circumstances -- no matter the safeguards imposed or specific documents excluded -- "would require the disclosure of highly classified NSA sources and methods about the TSP [Terrorist Surveillance Program] and other NSA activities" (page 8). According to the Obama administration, what were once leading examples of Bush's lawlessness and contempt for the Constitution -- namely, his illegal, warrantless domestic spying programs -- are now vital "state secrets" in America's War on Terror, such that courts are prohibited even from considering whether the Government was engaging in crimes when spying on Americans.

 

That was the principal authoritarian instrument used by Bush/Cheney to shield itself from judicial accountability, and it is now the instrument used by the Obama DOJ to do the same. Initially, consider this: if Obama's argument is true -- that national security would be severely damaged from any disclosures about the government's surveillance activities, even when criminal -- doesn't that mean that the Bush administration and its right-wing followers were correct all along when they insisted that The New York Times had damaged American national security by revealing the existence of the illegal NSA program? Isn't that the logical conclusion from Obama's claim that no court can adjudicate the legality of the program without making us Unsafe?

 

Beyond that, just consider the broader implications of what is going on here. Even after they announced their new internal guidelines with great fanfare, the Obama administration is explicitly arguing that the President can break the law with impunity -- can commit crimes -- when it comes to domestic surveillance because our surveillance programs are so secret that national security will be harmed if courts are permitted to adjudicate their legality. As the plaintiffs' lawyers put it last July (emphasis in original), government officials:

 

 

seek to transform a limited, common law evidentiaryprivilege into sweeping immunity for their own unlawful conduct. . . . [They] would sweep away these vital constitutional principles with the stroke of a declaration, arrogating to themselves the right to immunize any criminal or unconstitutional conduct in the name of national security. . . .

 

 

For that reason, as they pointedly noted the last time the Obama DOJ sought to compel dismissal based on this claim: "defendants' motion is even more frightening than the conduct alleged in the Amended Complaint." Think about that argument: the Obama DOJ's secrecy and immunity theories are even more threatening than the illegal domestic spying programs they seek to protect. Why? As the plaintiffs explains

 

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_MnYI3_FRbbQ/Su10...us/s400/eff.png

 

Can anyone deny that's true? If the President can simply use "secrecy" claims to block courts from ruling on whether he broke the law, then what checks or limits exist on the President's power to spy illegally on Americans or commit other crimes in a classified setting? By definition, there are none. That's what made this distortion of the "state secrets" privilege so dangerous when Bush used it, and it's what makes it so dangerous now. Back in April, 2006 -- a mere four months after the illegal NSA program was first revealed, and right after Bush had asserted "state secrets" to block any judicial inquiry into the NSA program -- here is what I wrote about the Bush administration's use of the "state secrets" privilege as a means of blocking entire lawsuits rather than limiting the use of specific classified documents:

 

 

[Q]uite unsurprisingly, the Bush administration loves this doctrine, as it is so consistent with its monarchical view of presidential infallibility, and the administration has become the most aggressive and enthusiastic user of this doctrine . . . . As the Chicago Tribune detailed last year, the administration has also used this doctrine repeatedly to obstruct any judicial proceedings designed to investigate its torture and rendition policies, among others . . . . This administration endlessly searches out obscure legal doctrines or new legal theories which have one purpose -- to eradicate limits on presidential power and to increase the President's ability to prevent disclosure of all but the most innocuous and meaningless information.

 

 

That was the prevailing, consensus view at the time among Democrats, progressives and civil libertarians regarding Bush's use of the state secrets privilege: that the privilege was being used to exclude the President from the rule of law by seeking to preclude judicial examination of his conduct. Plainly, Obama is now doing the same exact thing -- not just to shield domestic surveillance programs from judicial review but also torture and renditions. Is there any conceivable, rational reason to view this differently? None that I can see.

 

Note, too, how this latest episode eviscerates many of the excuses made earlier this year by Obama supporters to justify this conduct. It was frequently claimed that these arguments were likely asserted by holdover Bush DOJ lawyers without the involvement of Obama officials -- but under the new DOJ guidelines, the Attorney General must personally approve of any state secrets assertions, and Eric Holder himself confirmed in a Press Release on Friday that he did so here. Alternatively, it was often claimed that Obama was only asserting these Bush-replicating theories because he secretly hoped to lose in court and thus magnanimously gift us with good precedent -- but the Obama administration has repeatedly lost in court on these theories and then engaged in extraordinary efforts to destroy those good precedents, including by inducing the full appellate court to vacate the decisions or even threatening to defy the court orders compelling disclosure. In light of this behavior, no rational person can continue to maintain those excuses.

 

Is there any doubt at this point that, as TalkingPointsMemo put it in a headline: "Obama Mimics Bush on State Secrets"? Or can anyone dispute what EFF's Kevin Bankston told ABC News after the latest filing from the Obama DOJ:

 

 

The Obama administration has essentially adopted the position of the Bush administration in these cases, even though candidate Obama was incredibly critical of both the warrantless wiretapping program and the Bush administration's abuse of the state secrets privilege.

 

 

Extreme secrecy wasn't an ancillary aspect of the progressive critique of Bush/Cheney; it was central, as it was secrecy that enabled all the other abuses. More to the point, the secrecy claims being asserted here are not merely about hiding illegal government conduct; worse, they are designed to shield executive officials from accountability for lawbreaking. As the ACLU's Ben Wizner put it about the Obama DOJ's attempt to use the doctrine to bar torture victims from having a day in court: "This case is not about secrecy. It's about immunity from accountability." That's what Obama is supporting: "immunity from accountability."

 

What makes this most recent episode particularly appalling is that the program which Obama is seeking to protect here -- the illegal Bush/Cheney NSA surveillance scheme -- was once depicted as a grave threat to the Constitution and the ultimate expression of lawlessness. Yet now, Obama insists that the very same program is such an important "state secret" that no court can even adjudicate whether the law was broken. When Democrats voted to immunize lawbreaking telecoms last year, they repeatedly justified that by stressing that Bush officials themselves were not immunized and would therefore remain accountable under the law. Obama himself, when trying to placate angry supporters over his vote for telecom immunity, said this about the bill he supported:

 

 

I wouldn't have drafted the legislation like this, and it does not resolve all of the concerns that we have about President Bush's abuse of executive power. It grants retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies that may have violated the law by cooperating with the Bush administration's program of warrantless wiretapping. This potentially weakens the deterrent effect of the law and removes an important tool for the American people to demand accountability for past abuses.

 

 

Yet here is Obama doing exactly the opposite of those claims and assurances: namely, he's now (a) seeking to immunize not only telecoms, but also Bush officials, from judicial review; ( demanding that courts be barred from considering the legality of NSA surveillance programs under any circumstances; and © attempting to institutionalize the broadest claims of presidential immunity imaginable via radically broad secrecy claims. To do so, he's violating virtually everything he ever said about such matters when he was Senator Obama and Candidate Obama. And he's relying on the very same theories of executive immunity and secrecy that -- under a Republican President -- sparked so much purported outrage. If nothing else, this latest episode underscores the ongoing need for Congressional Democrats to proceed with proposed legislation to impose meaningful limits and oversight on the President's ability to use this power, as this President, just like the last one, has left no doubt about his willingness to abuse it for ignoble ends.

 

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_gr...rets/index.html