Glenn Greenwald's Blog, page 125

Bipartisanship pop quiz

One of the most striking aspects of the WikiLeaks debate from the start has been the identical mindset of political and media figures and the full consensus among them in condemning that group; in almost every debate I did on television, radio and everywhere else, it was impossible to distinguish between the views on these leaks from politicians and journalists, as they read from the same anti-WikiLeaks script.  With a few exceptions, exactly the same has been true of Democrats and Republicans:  there has been full-scale bipartisan consensus such that it's impossible to distinguish between the "two sides" on this issue. 

Yesterday, MSNBC's Dylan Ratigan hosted a segment on the extreme, prolonged isolation in which Bradley Manning has been kept for eight months now, despite having been convicted of nothing.   He had on his panel a "Democratic strategist," a "Republican strategist," and "a Washington insider."  Ratigan tried without any success to get them to understand why putting someone in a cage by themselves for 23 hours a day under extremely repressive conditions was unjust and intolerable.  Begin at the 1:20 mark -- right after Ratigan introduces his panel -- and see if you can identify who the Republican is, who the Democrat is, and who the "Washington insider" is; I'd submit it's impossible.  Once your guesses are in, go back and watch the beginning of the segment and grade yourself -- on the honor system.  It's the Joys of Bipartisanship: 

One other aspect of this bipartisanship quiz -- an extra credit essay, if you will (and the flu I referenced yesterday turned out to be anything but "mild," so posting may be quite sparse over the next few days): yesterday, Atrios referenced the snide, Red-State-mimicking derision of prolonged isolation and solitary confinement by former Obama campaign aide Joy Reid (which I noted in the update to yesterday's post), and then asked this extremely relevant question:

As I wallow in my flu-induced misery, I'd be genuinely interested in hearing answers to that question.

Various matters

(updated below)

The combination of a mild (I'm hoping) flu and the all-consuming fixation by many on Obama's speech tonight makes this a good time to raise several discrete matters worth noting:

(1) Last month, The New York Times' Charlie Savage reported that the DOJ -- in order to distinguish Julian Assange and WikiLeaks from investigative journalists -- was seeking to prove that they actively conspired beforehand with Bradley Manning to "steal" classified information, as opposed to merely receiving and then publishing it after the fact.  That prosecution tactic has apparently run into a major roadblock.  According to NBC News' Jim Miklaszewski, "investigators have been unable to make any direct connection between" Manning and Assange, as "there is apparently no evidence [Manning] passed the files directly to Assange, or had any direct contact with the controversial WikiLeaks figure."  

If true, that would leave the Obama DOJ with two options:  (1) prosecute WikiLeaks and Assange for doing nothing more than receiving and publishing classified information:  an act that is simply not a crime in the U.S. and could not be prosecuted as one without criminalizing much of investigative journalism (indeed, it's no different than what The New York Times did in this case and countless other cases), or (2) defy political pressure, honor the First Amendment, and accept that Wikileaks did nothing criminal.

 

(2) The DOJ's apparent failure to find the evidence it needs to prosecute WikiLeaks underscores the reasons for the increasingly inhumane treatment to which Bradley Manning is being subjected.  It's long been clear -- and reported -- that the Obama DOJ desperately needs Manning to incriminate Assange in order to be able to prosecute him (by, for instance, providing the Manning-Assange link that the DOJ is unable to prove).  The harsh, punitive conditions under which Manning are being held is designed -- like most detainee abuse -- to force him to say what his captors want him to say (yesterday, Amnesty USA followed Amnesty International in denouncing Manning's detention conditions as "inhumane").

Not only did Quantico officials this weekend contrive reasons to deny Manning his only real reprieve from isolation -- periodic Saturday visits from his friend David House -- but they also last week made his conditions even harsher by placing him on suicide watch even though three separate brig psychiatrists said it was unwarranted.  That decision resulted in this:

The suicide risk assignment meant that PFC Manning was required to remain in his cell for 24 hours a day. He was stripped of all clothing with the exception of his underwear. His prescription eyeglasses were taken away from him. He was forced to sit in essential blindness with the exception of the times that he was reading or given limited television privileges. During those times, his glasses were returned to him.

But because of all the light that has been shined on the issue of Manning's detention, the Government has now been forced to publicly admit that the imposition of these conditions was not only improper, but punitive.  From Miklaszewski:

The officials told NBC News [] that a U.S. Marine commander did violate procedure when he placed Manning on "suicide watch" last week.

Military officials said Brig Commander James Averhart did not have the authority to place Manning on suicide watch for two days last week, and that only medical personnel are allowed to make that call.

The official said that after Manning had allegedly failed to follow orders from his Marine guards, Averhart declared Manning a "suicide risk." Manning was then placed on suicide watch, which meant he was confined to his cell, stripped of most of his clothing and deprived of his reading glasses. . . 

The order was lifted once Manning's lawyer filed a formal complaint, but clearly, the mentality of brig officials is to punish Manning -- who has been convicted of nothing -- and make life as inhumane and unbearable for him as possible, even if it means violating their own rules and abusing the oppression of "suicide watch" to torment him further.   None of this will deter the blind authoritarians among us -- the long-time marchers on the Right and their newfound Obama-apologist comrades -- from citing pronouncements from brig and other military and government officials as though they're unchallengeable Gospel (that's what authoritarians, by definition, do), but for anyone minimally rational, this episode will underscore the need for serious skepticism with such claims.

The one silver lining from all of this has been the surprisingly substantial attention now being paid to the inhumane conditions of Manning's detention.  Yesterday, ABC's Jake Tapper asked Robert Gibbs about it; MSNBC yesterday featured an excellent interview with Jane Hamsher about what is being done to Manning; the Amnesty and U.N. actions have brought even more attention; and as part of Miklaszewski's featured report last night, he noted that "U.S. military officials also strongly denied allegations that Manning . . . . has been 'tortured' and held in 'solitary confinement' without due process."  This has become a real issue, as it should be.

 

(3) There's an emerging theme circulating in some precincts that those protesting the conditions of Manning's detention are somehow acting improperly because they ignore -- and even implicitly endorse -- all the other cases of prisoners in the U.S. being held in prolonged isolation.  This claim was first concocted by James Ridgeway and Jean Casella in a recent Op-Ed in The Guardian, in which they glaringly fail to identify a single person guilty of these accusations, opting instead for the consummately cowardly and slimy reliance on the "some say" strawmen tactic favored by mendacious politicians.  Thus we find accusations hurled at the following, all without names, citations or even links:  "many have argued . . . .  progressive commentators . . . these writers – and their readers, if comments are any measure . . . they depict . . . writers and readers make the point . . . . We have also seen articles suggesting. . . . " 

It's hard to overstate the intellectual dishonesty and cowardice of those who use this tactic (as always, if you defend yourself from these nameless accusations, the accusers will simply claim they didn't mean you; if you don't, the insinuation hangs over you).  As a general rule:  if you want to take issue with what someone has said, name them specifically and link to them (or at least cite and quote from the offending article) so that there's accountability and a way for readers to check the veracity of your claims.

This accusation is necessary to address because it's now become a popular means among Obama apologists for discrediting objections to Manning's detention (and, in the hands of some of the Internet's most bottom-scraping, Obama-revering commenters, has even morphed into a claim that the focus on Manning is racially motivated: i.e., he's white, hence the unique concern over his treatment).  It's also necessary to address because this Guardian Op-Ed does link to my original article reporting on Manning's conditions -- not to necessarily suggest that I stand accused of these crimes of selective concern, but as an example of Manning's detention being "discussed, lamented and protested throughout the left-leaning blogosphere."  I just want to comprehensively address this little smear one time before it proliferates further:

First, those voicing these accusations have apparently never heard of someone named "Jose Padilla," who was mercilessly tortured during the Bush years -- and psychologically destroyed -- from years of solitary confinement without being charged with a crime; back in October, 2006, I detailed the prolonged solitary confinement -- the "torture" -- to which Padilla was subjected ("The base ingredient in Mr. Padilla's torture was stark isolation for a substantial portion of his captivity," quoting his lawyer's brief), and -- along with countless others now protesting Manning's conditions -- I denounced this treatment as "one of the most despicable and outright un-American travesties the U.S. Government has perpetrated for a long time."  Indeed, I wrote endlessly about Padilla's plight, and that was roughly four years before anyone heard the name "Bradley Manning." 

Second, in March, 2009, Sen. Jim Webb introduced legislation to fundamentally reform America's Prison State and prison conditions in the U.S.; I publicized that bill and hailed Webb's focus on what I called "disgustingly harsh conditions inside prisons" as "genuinely courageous and principled."  Third, both before I ever heard of Manning and every time I've written about him, I've denounced prolonged isolation in general as not only inhumane, but torture.  In June, 2009 -- roughly a year before I ever heard the name "Bradley Manning" -- here's what I wrote:

Prolonged solitary confinement is absolutely a form of torture, and while it's unknown whether Shalit was subjected to that, extreme isolation and prolonged solitary confinement are prominents features of America's prisoner system -- not only as part of the "War on Terror," but our domestic prison system as well.

The first time I wrote about Manning, I described the "inhumane, personality-erasing, soul-destroying, insanity-inducing conditions of isolation . . . at America's Supermax prison in Florence, Colorado" and reviewed the full body of literature on how solitary confinement destroys the brain.  When I wrote about Manning last month, I noted that "the U.S. is one of the world's most prolific practitioners of prolonged solitary confinement" and at least 25,000 prisoners in America were subjected to it, and then wrote: "Prolonged solitary confinement is inhumane, horrendous and gratuitous even when applied to those convicted of heinous crimes."  Fourth, I just finished writing a soon-to-be-released book on America's two-tiered justice system that devotes substantial attention -- including an entire long chapter -- on the way in which America's Prison State is profoundly oppressive based on race and class lines, with a focus on the inhumane conditions of imprisonment.

The notion that objections to Manning's conditions are the by-product of newly discovered concerns or are due to his privileged or celebrated status is offensive in the extreme and, worse, demonstrably false (as the above citations prove).  Moreover, those of us whose work focuses on America's civil liberties abuses spend most of our time writing about the plight of ignored, forgotten, marginalized, powerless, invisible, demonized minorities (Gulet Mohamed, Maher Arar, Binyam Mohamed, Ali al-Marri, Chinese Uighurs, etc. etc.) and/or holding the world's most powerful factions accountable for systematic abuses of their authority. 

It's true that high-profile cases like Manning's can bring otherwise elusive attention to general problems (Gabrielle Giffords was hardly rare in being shot by an apparently deranged person, but that episode was highly publicized and thus seized on by gun policy and mental health advocates across the board to bring attention to their positions).  It's also true that the treatment of Manning raises disturbing issues not triggered by other prisoner abuse cases:  namely, it's designed to enable a radical attack on press freedoms (by coercing anti-WikiLeaks testimony) and is being carried out by high-level officials in the administration of a President who ran on a platform of ending detainee abuse.  And just like the death penalty in general is unjust when applied to convicted felons but worse when imposed on those convicted of no crime, subjecting someone to prolonged isolation who has been convicted of nothing and poses no danger raises additional issues not raised by doing that to a convicted felon who has proven himself a threat to others (even though they're both wrong). 

But whatever else is true, the very idea that this is some sort of new, boutique concern for those objecting to the conditions of Manning's detention is a pure fabrication.  What's being done to Manning is an absolute manifestation of the abuses of the National Security State, the Prison State and America's authoritarian culture that have been long protested by most of those now writing about Manning.

(4) For those in California, I'll be appearing at several events next week:  on Wednesday, February 2, I'll be at Claremont McKenna College in Claremont, near Los Angeles, speaking about Obama's civil liberties record; on Thursday, February 3, I'll be speaking at Berkeley during the day on "Human Rights, Civil Liberties, and the War on Terror," and that night I'll be speaking at Stanford University on "the War on WikiLeaks and why it matters"; and on Friday, February 4, I'll be speaking in Palo Alto at an event of the Peninsula Peace and Justice Center on "Civil Liberties in a Time of Endless War."  I believe all events are open to the public and will post more details in a few days.

 

(5) I was on Lawrence O'Donnell's Last Word program last night -- its debut in the 8:00 p.m. time slot formerly occupied by Keith Olbermann -- discussing Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas' brazen politicization of their office.  The segment can be seen here:

 

UPDATE:  This is a perfect sign of the times.  Here's former Obama campaign press aide Joy Reid this morning on the controversy over Manning's detention:

And here's Red State on the same subject:

Leaving aside the extraordinary levels of dishonesty and/or denseness required to claim that the Manning controversy is about whether or not he has a pillow, the fact that an ex-Obama campaign aide and Red State diarists now sound exactly alike in mocking issues of detainee abuse and prolonged isolation says all one really needs to know about what has happened in these areas over the last two years.

On a separate note, The New York Times is now actively considering creating a system pioneered by WikiLeaks -- and recently adopted by Al Jazeera -- to allow whistleblowers to leak classified documents with full anonymity by uploading them to their site.  Media executives like Bill Keller can claim all they want that they're not like WikiLeaks, but the more they copy their methods and benefit from their work, the more their actions negate those protestations.

[Finally:  please note that it is Salon's excellent Art Department, and not me, who chooses and inserts the photographs that appear at the beginning of my columns; put another way, I'm not the one who decided to place a large photograph of myself at the top of this page.]

America's treatment of detainees

Amnesty International has written a letter to Defense Secretary Robert Gates objecting to the conditions of Bradley Manning's detention, which was first reported here.  The group denounces the oppressive conditions under which Manning is being held as "unnecessarily harsh and punitive," and further states they "appear to breach the USA's obligations under international standards and treaties, including Article 10 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights."  The letter describes Manning's treatment as particularly egregious "in view of the fact that he has no history of violence or disciplinary infractions and that he is a pre-trial detainee not yet convicted of any offence." Moreover:

The harsh conditions imposed on PFC Manning also undermine the principle of the presumption of innocence, which should be taken into account in the treatment of any person under arrest or awaiting trial. We are concerned that the effects of isolation and prolonged cellular confinement . . . may, further, undermine his ability to assist in his defence and thus his right to a fair trial.

The letter follows a report from Manning's lawyer, former Lt. Col. David Coombs, that the conditions of his detention temporarily worsened in the past week, prompting a formal complaint under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.  Amnesty's letter also follows a report that the U.N.'s leading official on torture is formally investigating the conditions of Manning's detention, a fact confirmed two weeks ago by The New York Times  ("the United Nations' special rapporteur on torture, Juan E. Mendez, [] said he had submitted a formal inquiry about the soldier's treatment to the State Department").  

Of course, caring what Amnesty International or the U.N. have to say about the conditions of America's detainees is so very 2004.  Now, such a concern is -- to borrow a phrase from Alberto Gonazles -- a quaint and obsolete relic of the past.

Relatedly, the ACLU has obtained new documents which shed more harsh light on the 190 War on Terror detainees who died in American custody.  Specifically, many of these documents -- autopsy reports and military investigations - - show that at least 25 to 30 of those cases were "unjustified homicides," i.e., murder.  It's long been known that many detainees were killed by their treatment during interrogation.  I wrote about many of these cases here over a year ago, and Gen. Barry McCaffrey has said:  "We tortured people unmercifully.  We probably murdered dozens of them during the course of that, both the armed forces and the C.I.A."  But these new documents show that these deaths at the hands of U.S. captors were even more deliberate, brutal and widespread than previously known:

In one such case, a detainee was killed by an unnamed sergeant who walked into a room where the detainee was lying wounded "and assaulted him ... then shot him twice thus killing him," one of the investigating documents says. The sergeant than instructed the other soldiers present to lie about the incident. Later, the document says an unnamed corporal then shot the deceased detainee in the head after finding his corpse.

Appropriately, The Weekly Standard today has an interview with former Bush Attorney General Michael Mukasey in which he slams Eric Holder for the mere possibility that some of these detainee deaths will be criminally investigated, calling it a "witch hunt."  That view is not an aberration, of course.  The Brookings Institutions' Benjamin Wittes last week criticized the Obama DOJ for merely leaving open the possibility of prosecution for some of these CIA interrogators who were so sadistic and lawless that they even exceeded the boundaries of the torture permission slips given to them by the Bush DOJ.  Both Mukasey and Wittes are speaking for the consensus of America's political class.  They -- and it -- literally believe that anyone acting as part of the American government should be able to get away with murder -- which they'll argue in between sermons on the evils of other nations' human rights abuses and the need for the U.S. to "do more" to stop such abuses.

Bipartisan praise for Joe Lieberman

Joe Lieberman this week announced his involuntary retirement from the Senate -- compelled by humiliatingly high disapproval ratings in his own state and the 2006 ejection from his own party -- and Beltway denizens are now rushing to heap praise on this Deeply Principled, Civil, and Decent Man of Conscience.  The New York Times' spokesman for establishment wisdom and entitlement, David Brooks, today hails Lieberman as "A Most Valuable Democrat" and gushes over his "courageous independence of mind"; Brooks also quotes several leading Democrats venerating the four-term Connecticut Senator, including John Kerry ("a terrific senator" who is "defined himself by his conscience and beliefs"), Harry Reid ("an integral part of the Democratic caucus") and Joe Biden ("Joe's leadership and powerful intellect" are overwhelming but "it is his civility that will be missed the most").  Brooks also approvingly cites a post from The Washington Post's Ezra Klein suggesting (not without qualification) that Lieberman is a "Democratic hero" because he voted for most of Obama's domestic agenda over the last two years.

Conspicuously missing from any of these paeans is the issue most responsible for the contempt in which many liberals (and anti-war conservatives) hold Lieberman:  his vigorous, ongoing support for the attack on Iraq.  Why allow the small matter of a decade-long, brutal occupation that eradicated the lives of hundreds of thousands of human beings to negatively affect the reputation of a Washington official?  To bring any of that up is so very uncivil and past-obsessed.  Like torture, illegal eavesdropping, CIA black sites, the systematic denial of due process in a worldwide prison regime, and the ongoing Nobel-Peace-Prize-winning acts of war entailing things like this (all of which Lieberman also supported), the Iraq War is written off -- flushed down the memory hole -- as nothing more than one of those garden-variety "policy differences" about which reasonable, decent people disagree.  

Support for all those violent and illegal acts just isn't something we hold against someone, and it's certainly not going to preclude someone from being a "Democratic hero."  Indeed, even Lieberman's false claim -- repeated just yesterday -- that we found evidence that Saddam was developing WMDs (while patronizingly calling Arianna Huffington "sweetheart" after she disagreed) won't interfere at all in these admiration rituals, even (especially) in Beltway Democratic circles.

In one sense, this is unsurprising, since every one of the Lieberman-praising individuals in the first paragraph -- like most Washington opinion-makers -- also publicly supported the Iraq War, and thus are eager to uphold a framework in which public war advocacy -- even unrepentant advocacy -- is not even slightly reputation-damaging.  It's perfectly fine in D.C. circles to talk about the Iraq War as a "mistake," but assigning responsibility for the human suffering and devastation it unleashed is simply not done.  And, of course, the number one rule of Washington is that high-level political officials should not be held accountable, even reputationally, for anything they do (Look Forward, Good Citizens, Not Backwards).

But the blood on Joe Lieberman's hands is accounted for by far more than support for the Iraq War.  He's long been one of Washington's most indiscriminate, toxic and deceitful supporters of aggressive war generally.  Even as the two wars he cheered on were spiraling out of control, he was repeatedly urging new American attacks against Iran, Syria and, most recently, Yemen.  Lieberman -- who, needless to say, never served in the military nor have any of his children -- devoted his entire career to attempting to send other Americans' children to fight war after war after war.  In sum, as The Philadelphia Inquirer's Will Bunch put it when examining the muddled history of Lieberman's opposition to the war in Vietnam:  "the only war he ever opposed was the only war he might actually have had to fight in."  But, of course, being a relentless warmonger while cowardly hiding yourself and your family far away from the wars you cheer on is not remotely inconsistent with being a Man of Decency and Conscience, as David Brooks and his many Beltway admirers will be the first to tell you.

Then there's Lieberman's vaunted "civility."  He was not only one of the most vocal war supporters, but was responsible for some of the most toxic and McCarthyite efforts to stigmatize war opposition as illegitimate and even treasonous.  In 2005, he infamously lectured Democratic war critics that "in matters of war we undermine presidential credibility at our nation's peril," and in 2007 used the language of treason to pose leading questions to Gen. David Petraeus to induce the General's agreement that war opposition "would give the enemy some comfort."  Worse, Lieberman often bolstered these smears with outright lies, such as when he claimed on Meet the Press that we were "attacked on 9/11 by the same enemy we're fighting in Iraq today."  Behold his grand civility.

And then there's the leading role Lieberman played in lending Democratic support to the whole litany of Bush/Cheney assaults on basic liberties.  He defended the "Bush interrogation program" and even waterboarding, and was one of only two Democrats to vote against banning it.  He led the way -- along with his close friends John McCain and Lindsey Graham -- in enacting the Military Commissions Act, which explicitly denied all detainees the right to contest their detention in a court of law:  a measure so repressive that the Supreme Court in Boumediene struck it down as unconstitutional, citing Alexander Hamilton's warning that "the practice of arbitrary imprisonments, in all ages, is the favorite and most formidable instruments of tyranny."  Once the Court re-established the habeas right which Lieberman and his comrades snuffed out, it turned out, as federal courts found, that there was no credible evidence to justify the detention of a huge percentage of remaining detainees at Guantanamo:  innocent people who would have been imprisoned indefinitely to this day -- without a shred of due process --  if Lieberman had his way.

This "Democratic hero" has spent decades posing serious threats to basic liberties, including free speech.   It was Lieberman who, just a few weeks ago, publicly threatened and bullied all companies to terminate their relationship with WikiLeaks despite its not even being charged with, let alone convicted of, any crime.  That was just a repeat of his censoring behavior, two years earlier, when he successfully demanded that YouTube remove videos he disliked, causing The New York Times to editorialize: "it is profoundly disturbing that an influential senator would even consider telling a media company to shut down constitutionally protected speech."  And it was Lieberman who joined with Bill Bennett, Sam Brownback, Lynne Cheney, Tipper Gore and others in trying to regulate music they disliked.

Then there's the bill introduced last year by Lieberman and McCain -- the so-called "Enemy Belligerent Interrogation, Detention and Prosecution Act" -- which is probably the single most extremist, tyrannical and dangerous bill introduced in the U.S. Senate in the last several decades, far beyond the horrific, habeas-abolishing Military Commissions Act. It would literally empower the President to imprison anyone he wants in his sole discretion by simply decreeing them a Terrorist suspect -- including American citizens arrested on U.S. soil.  The bill requires that all such individuals be placed in military custody, and explicitly says that they "may be detained without criminal charges and without trial for the duration of hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners," which everyone expects to last decades, at least.  It's basically a bill designed to formally authorize what the Bush administration did to American citizen Jose Padilla or what was done to Japanese-Americans during World War II -- arrest them on U.S. soil and imprison them for years in military custody with no charges.

As for Lieberman's Principled Integrity, just consider this article from The Hill yesterday, which describes how the Connecticut Senator has been so loyal to defense contractors that they are lamenting that he'll be "hard to replace."  And then there's the matter of his virulent servitude to the health insurance industry placed next to his wife's "professional lifetime devoted to the corporate health sector."  And, needless to say, he was the receipient of millions of dollars from the industries he so loyally served.

This is all just the small illustrative tip of the iceberg that is Joe Lieberman's hideous, destructive political career.  It leaves out his alliance with the worst religious extremists in the country, such as Rev. John Hagee, his steadfast refusal as Homeland Security Chairman to investigate some of the Bush administration's worst failures and abuses, and -- of course -- his overarching, unyielding, blind support for anything and everything Israel does, even trying to construct similar absolute allegiance to Israel as a litmus test for American politicians.  In a 2008 report, Think Progress compiled all the ways that this Democratic Hero has not only failed to support progressive values, but led the way in waging war on them, and this amusing Gail Collins column from yesterday perfectly captured Lieberman's rotted "character."

That this same person, in light of this record, can be so widely hailed in Washington circles is significant indeed.  Granted:  some of the praise is just the pro forma self-regard in which Washington elites and especially Senators hold themselves; he's one of Them, in good standing in the royal court culture, and is thus entitled to obligatory praise upon retiring.  But the reality of Joe Lieberman is that he always fit perfectly into the Democratic Party.  Virtually the entire Party establishment stood behind him in his 2006 re-election bid:  not just during his primary fight, but even once Connecticut Democrats chose someone else (Ned Lamont) as their nominee, the support offered by establishment Democrats for Lamont ranged from stingy to non-existent. 

That's why it's utterly unsurprising to watch Democrats -- and even progressive pundits such as Klein -- heap praise on Lieberman.  It's more than obligatory; they mean it.  Very few of the views Lieberman holds is inconsistent with Democratic Party dogma.  How, for instance, could Democrats possibly hold his Iraq War support against him when the vast majority of top Obama officials (Biden, Clinton, Gates, Emanuel, etc. etc.) supported the same war?  Or how could they possibly suggest that his enabling of Bush's torture, illegal eavesdropping and detention regimes are reputationally damaging when party leaders and the Party itself enabled the same policies? And, obviously, corrupt obeisance to industry and lobbyists, a war on civil liberties, and blind support for Israel are so pervasive in both parties that very few people could possibly hold any of that against him.  The reason Lieberman's long record of heinous acts isn't invoked as criticism is because they're little more than bipartisan Washington pieties, perhaps just a bit more flamboyantly expressed in his case.

Even more significant is how this Democratic praise for Lieberman reveals just how bipartisan the Washington consensus on most issues truly is.  When Lieberman ran for re-election in 2006, his most vocal support came from places like The Weekly Standard, National Review, and Commentary Magazine; Sean Hannity, Bill Kristol and right-wing radio hosts cheered for his victory.  But a mere four years later, he's branded in The Washington Post as a "Democratic hero" and leading Democrats rush forward to praise him.  As happens so often, the two sides who -- in our political theater -- are endlessly presented as being polar opposites, intractably hostile to one another, in fact find common ground with amazing frequency.  The extremely bipartisan and quite genuine love for Joe Lieberman in Washington circles (notwithstanding the contempt of his own constituents) illustrates that as well as anything else.

It's understandable if Democrats are happy that Lieberman voted for much of Obama's domestic agenda over the last two years.  Even that praise is highly questionable; after all, he voted for Obama's health care bill only after stripping out the truly progressive parts, while his recent role in crusading for gay rights was explained perfectly by Salon's Alex Pareene:  "Of course he wants gay people in the military -- he wants everyone in the military" (except himself and his own family).  But at least appreciation for those positions is cogent for those who view the world through the prism of how much value someone is to Barack Obama.

But to whitewash this long, bloody, repressive, disgraceful record of Joe Lieberman from his legacy and suggest he may be a "Democratic hero" -- all because he cast some pro-Obama votes over the last two years -- is just intolerable.  But it's par for the Washington course.  Blood-stained hands are far too common to be bothersome (it's part of the D.C. uniform); servitude to lobbyists and corporations is the central Article of Faith, not a ground for embarrassment or disgrace; assaults on core liberties is how Strength and Seriousness are demonstrated; and "centrism" and "principled independence" are the glorifying names given to status quo perpetuation and loyalty to the factions who run Washington.  Lieberman isn't widely admired across the Washington spectrum and in both parties despite his aberrational acts; he's admired precisely because he's the perfect face of what that culture is and what it values.

* * * * *

Three updates relating to issues I've recently written about:  (1) in a bit of good news:  it appears that, in response to CAIR's lawsuit brought on behalf of Gulet Mohamed, the Obama administration has capitulated and allowed the American teenager to return to his own country (as of this moment, he has deplaned at Dulles and is in customs, where he is being interrogated, yet again, by the FBI without counsel); (2) Salon's Justin Elliott describes how the Obama DOJ -- the Most Transparent Administration Ever™ -- has secretly adopted new guidelines on Miranda warnings but refuses to disclose them; and (3) a former Marine commander of the Quantico brig writes a letter to the current commander to object to the conditions of Bradley Manning's detention; Manning's lawyer details here how these conditions worsened this week and a complaint has been filed (a petition will be delivered to Quantico tomorrow which I encourage everyone to sign).

Lastly:  my sincere thanks and appreciation to everyone who contributed to my blog fund-raiser last week.  I am in the process of sending out thank you emails to each person who donated, but that may take me a bit of time, so in the meantime, please accept my genuine thanks; reader support is both very gratifying and helpful.

Obama officials caught deceiving about WikiLeaks

Whenever the U.S. Government wants to demonize a person or group in order to justify attacks on them, it follows the same playbook:  it manufactures falsehoods about them, baselessly warns that they pose Grave Dangers and are severely harming our National Security, peppers all that with personality smears to render the targeted individuals repellent on a personal level, and feeds it all to the establishment American media, which then dutifully amplifies and mindlessly disseminates it all.  That, of course, was the precise scheme that so easily led the U.S. into attacking Iraq; it's what continues to ensure support for the whole litany of War on Terror abuses and the bonanza of power and profit which accompanies them; and it's long been obvious that this is the primary means for generating contempt for WikiLeaks to enable its prosecution and ultimate destruction (an outcome the Pentagon has been plotting since at least 2008).

When WikiLeaks in mid-2010 published documents detailing the brutality and corruption at the heart of the war in Afghanistan, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Michael Mullen, held a Press Conference and said of WikiLeaks (and then re-affirmed it on his Twitter account) that they "might already have on their hands the blood of some young soldier or that of an Afghan family."  This denunciation predictably caused the phrase "blood on their hands" to be attached to WikiLeaks and its founder, Julian Assange, in thousands of media accounts around the world.  But two weeks later, the Pentagon's spokesman, when pressed, was forced to admit that there was no evidence whatsoever for that accusation:  "we have yet to see any harm come to anyone in Afghanistan that we can directly tie to exposure in the WikiLeaks documents," he admitted.  Several months later, after more flamboyant government condemnations of WikiLeaks' release of thousands of Iraq War documents, McClatchy's Nancy Youssef -- in an article headlined:  "Officials may be overstating the danger from WikiLeaks" -- reported that "U.S. officials concede that they have no evidence to date" that the disclosures resulted in the deaths of anyone, and she detailed the great care WikiLeaks took in that Iraq War release to protect innocent people.

The disclosure of American diplomatic cables triggered still more melodramatic claims from government officials (ones faithfully recited by its servants and followers across the spectrum in Washington), accusing WikiLeaks of everything from "attacking" the U.S. (Hillary Clinton) and "plac[ing] at risk the lives of countless innocent individuals" and "ongoing military operations" (Harold Koh) to being comparable to Terrorists (Joe Biden).  But even Robert Gates was unwilling to lend his name to such absurdities, and when asked, mocked these accusations as "significantly overwrought" and said the WikiLeaks disclosures would be "embarrassing" and "awkward" and would have only "modest consequences."  

Since then, it has become clear how scrupulously careful WikiLeaks has been in releasing these cables in order to avoid unnecessary harm to innocent people, as the Associated Press reported how closely WikiLeaks was collaborating with its newspaper partners in deciding which cables to release and what redactions were necessary.  Indeed, one of the very few documents which anyone has been able to claim has produced any harm -- one revealing that the leader of Zimbabwe's opposition privately urged U.S. officials to continue imposing sanctions on his country -- was actually released by The Guardian, not by WikiLeaks.

To say that the Obama administration's campaign against WikiLeaks has been based on wildly exaggerated and even false claims is to understate the case.  But now, there is evidence that Obama officials have been knowingly lying in public about these matters.  The long-time Newsweek reporter Mark Hosenball -- now at Reuters -- reports that what Obama officials are saying in private about WikiLeaks directly contradicts their public claims:

Internal U.S. government reviews have determined that a mass leak of diplomatic cables caused only limited damage to U.S. interests abroad, despite the Obama administration's public statements to the contrary.

A congressional official briefed on the reviews said the administration felt compelled to say publicly that the revelations had seriously damaged American interests in order to bolster legal efforts to shut down the WikiLeaks website and bring charges against the leakers. . . .

"We were told (the impact of WikiLeaks revelations) was embarrassing but not damaging," said the official, who attended a briefing given in late 2010 by State Department officials. . .

But current and former intelligence officials note that while WikiLeaks has released a handful of inconsequential CIA analytical reports, the website has made public few if any real intelligence secrets, including reports from undercover agents or ultra-sensitive technical intelligence reports, such as spy satellite pictures or communications intercepts. . . .

National security officials familiar with the damage assessments being conducted by defense and intelligence agencies told Reuters the reviews so far have shown "pockets" of short-term damage, some of it potentially harmful. Long-term damage to U.S. intelligence and defense operations, however, is unlikely to be serious, they said. . . .

Shortly before WikiLeaks began its gradual release of State Department cables last year, department officials sent emails to contacts on Capitol Hill predicting dire consequences, said one of the two congressional aides briefed on the internal government reviews.

However, shortly after stories about the cables first began to appear in the media, State Department officials were already privately playing down the damage, the two congressional officials said.

In response to Hosenball's story, Obama officials naturally tried to salvage the integrity of their statements, insisting that "there has been substantial damage" and that there were unspecified "specific cases where damage caused by WikiLeaks' revelations have been assessed as serious to grave."  But the only specific cases anyone could identify were ones where the U.S. was caught by these documents lying to its own citizens or, at best, concealing vital truths -- such as the far greater military role the U.S. is playing in Yemen and Pakistan than Obama officials have publicly acknowledged.   

And this, of course, has been the point all along:  the WikiLeaks disclosures are significant precisely because they expose government deceit, wrongdoing and brutality, but the damage to innocent people has been deliberately and wildly exaggerated -- fabricated -- by the very people whose misconduct has been revealed.  There is harm from the WikiLeaks documents, but it's to wrongdoers in power, which is why they are so desperate to malign and then destroy the group.

Just as was true in 2003 -- when the joint, falsehood-based government/media demonization campaign led 69% of Americans to believe that Saddam Hussein participated in the planning of the 9/11 attacks (the Bush era's most revealing fact about American politics) -- this orgy of anti-WikiLeaks propaganda has succeeded, with polls reliably showing the American public largely against the group and even favoring its prosecution (citizens in countries not subjected to this propaganda barrage view the group far more favorably).  As has been demonstrated over and over, when the U.S. Government and its media collaborate to propagandize, its efficacy is not in doubt.  And as Marcy Wheeler notes, these lies were told not only to distort public opinion and justify prosecuting WikiLeaks for doing nothing more than engaging in journalism, but also to coerce private corporations (MasterCard, Amazon, Visa, Paypal) to cut all services to the group.

The case against WikiLeaks is absolutely this decade's version of the Saddam/WMD campaign.  It's complete with frivolous invocations of Terrorism, grave public warnings about National Security negated by concealed information, a competition among political and media elites to advocate the harshest measures possible, a cowardly Congress that (with a few noble exceptions) acquiesces to it all on a bipartisan basis and is eager to enable it, and a media that not only fails to subject these fictions to critical scrutiny, but does the opposite:  it takes the lead in propagating them.  One might express bewilderment that most American journalists never learn their lesson about placing their blind faith in government claims, but that assumes -- falsely -- that their objective is to report truthfully.

The vindication of Dick Cheney

(updated below)

In the early months of Obama's presidency, the American Right did to him what they do to every Democratic politician:  they accused him of being soft on defense (specifically "soft on Terror") and leaving the nation weak and vulnerable to attack.  But that tactic quickly became untenable as everyone (other than his hardest-core followers) was forced to acknowledge that Obama was embracing and even expanding -- rather than reversing -- the core Bush/Cheney approach to Terrorism.  As a result, leading right-wing figures began lavishing Obama with praise -- and claiming vindication -- based on Obama's switch from harsh critic of those policies (as a candidate) to their leading advocate (once in power).

As early as May, 2009, former Bush OLC lawyer Jack Goldsmith wrote in The New Republic that Obama was not only continuing Bush/Cheney Terrorism policies, but was strengthening them -- both because he was causing them to be codified in law and, more important, converting those policies from right-wing dogma into harmonious bipartisan consensus.  Obama's decision "to continue core Bush terrorism policies is like Nixon going to China," Goldsmith wrote.  Last October, former Bush NSA and CIA Director Michael Hayden -- one of the most ideological Bush officials, whose confirmation as CIA chief was opposed by then-Sen. Obama on the ground he had overseen the illegal NSA spying program -- gushed with praise for Obama: "there's been a powerful continuity between the 43rd and the 44th president."  James Jay Carafano, a homeland-security expert at the Heritage Foundation, told The New York Times' Peter Baker last January: "I don't think it's even fair to call it Bush Lite.  It's Bush.  It's really, really hard to find a difference that's meaningful and not atmospheric."

Those are the nation's most extreme conservatives praising Obama's Terrorism policies.  And now Dick Cheney himself -- who once led the "soft on Terror" attacks -- is sounding the same theme.  In an interview last night with NBC News, Cheney praised Obama for continuing his and Bush's core approach to Terrorism:

He obviously has been through the fires of becoming President and having to make decisions and live with the consequences. And it's different than being a candidate. When he was candidate he was all for closing Gitmo. He was very critical of what we'd done on the counterterrorism area to protect America from further attack and so forth. . . .

I think he's -- in terms of a lot of the terrorism policies -- the early talk, for example, about prosecuting people in the CIA who've been carrying out our policies -- all of that's fallen by the wayside. I think he's learned that what we did was far more appropriate than he ever gave us credit for while he was a candidate. So I think he's learned from experience.

Cheney was then specifically asked whether he stood by his early attacks on Obama's national security policies -- "You said you believe President Obama has made America less safe. That he's actually raised the risk of attack. Do you still feel that way?" -- and Cheney, not exactly known for changing his mind, essentially said that, thanks to Obama's continuity, he now does not:

Well, when I made that comment, I was concerned that the counterterrorism policies that we'd put in place after 9/11 that had kept the nation safe for over seven years were being sort of rapidly discarded. Or he was going to attempt to discard them. . . . As I say, I think he's found it necessary to be more sympathetic to the kinds of things we did.

It overstates the case to say there are no differences.  There were some: Obama formally ended the "enhanced interrogation program" (the authorization for which had been withdrawn when he took office); banned CIA black sites (which were empty when he took office); and has not invoked the Article II lawbreaking theories of Bush's first term (Bush largely abandoned them as well in his second term as Congress began legalizing his programs).  And there is a more conciliatory tone, and some greater technocratic efficiency, in some foreign policy pronouncements.  But the crux of Bush/Cheney radicalism -- the mindset and policies that caused much of the controversy -- continues and has even been strengthened.  Gen. Hayden put it best, as quoted by The Washington Times:

"You've got state secrets, targeted killings, indefinite detention, renditions, the opposition to extending the right of habeas corpus to prisoners at Bagram [in Afghanistan]," Mr. Hayden said, listing the continuities. "And although it is slightly different, Obama has been as aggressive as President Bush in defending prerogatives about who he has to inform in Congress for executive covert action."

And that list, impressive though it is, doesn't even include the due-process-free assassination hit lists of American citizens, the sweeping executive power and secrecy theories used to justify it, the multi-tiered, "state-always-wins" justice system the Obama DOJ concocted for detainees, the vastly more aggressive war on whistleblowers and press freedoms, or the new presidential immunity doctrines his DOJ has invented.  Critically, this continuity extends beyond specific policies into the underlying sloganeering mentality in which they're based:  we're in a Global War; the whole Earth is the Battlefield; the Terrorists want to kill us because they're intrinsically Evil (not in reaction to anything we do); we're justified in doing anything and everything to eradicate Them; the President's overarching obligation (contrary to his Constitutional oath) is to keep us Safe; this should all be kept secret from us; we can't be bothered with obsolete dogma like Due Process and Warrants, etc. etc.

Aside from the repressiveness of the policies themselves, there are three highly significant and enduring harms from Obama's behavior.  First, it creates the impression that Republicans were right all along in the Bush-era War on Terror debates and Democratic critics were wrong.  The same theme is constantly sounded by conservatives who point out Obama's continuation of these policies:  that he criticized those policies as a candidate out of ignorance and partisan advantage, but once he became President, he realized they were right as a result of accessing the relevant classified information and needing to keep the country safe from the Terrorist threat.  Goldsmith, for instance, claimed Obama changed his mind about these matters "after absorbing the classified intelligence and considering the various options."  GOP Sen. Susan Collins told the NYT's Baker that Obama "is finding that many of those policies were better-thought-out than they realized."  Cheney boasted that Obama "obviously has been through the fires of becoming President and having to make decisions and live with the consequences."  Predictably -- and understandably -- here's the headline Cheney's interview generated in The Hill this morning:

This has settled in as orthodoxy:  one could criticize Bush/Cheney Terrorism policies only out of ignorance and/or being free of the solemn obligation to Keep America Safe.

Second, Obama has single-handedly eliminated virtually all mainstream debate over these War on Terror policies.  At least during the Bush years, we had one party which steadfastly supported them but one party which claimed (albeit not very persuasively) to vehemently oppose them.  At least there was a pretense of vigorous debate over their legality, morality, efficacy, and compatibility with our national values.

Those debates are no more.  Even the hardest-core right-wing polemicists -- Gen. Hayden, the Heritage Foundation, Dick Cheney -- now praise Obama's actions in these areas.  Opposition from national Democrats has faded away to almost complete nonexistence now that it's a Democratic President doing these things.   What was once viewed as the signature of Bush/Cheney radicalism is now official, bipartisan Washington consensus: the policies equally of both parties and all Serious people.  Thanks to Barack Obama, this architecture is firmly embedded in place and invulnerable to meaningful political challenge.

Third, Obama's embrace of these policies has completely rehabilitated the reputations and standing of the Bush officials responsible for them.  Yesterday, J. Gerald Herbert -- a long-time DOJ official -- told The Raw Story that Obama's refusal to investigate or prosecute Bush era crimes is both a violation of DOJ's duties and sets a "dangerous precedent" by vesting lawbreaking elites with immunity.  The active protection of torturers and other high-level lawbreakers both signals that they did nothing seriously wrong and, independently, ensures that such conduct will be repeated in the future. 

But Obama's impact in this area extends far beyond that.  Dick Cheney is not only free of ignominy, but can run around claiming vindication from Obama's actions because he's right.  The American Right constantly said during the Bush years that any President who knew what Bush knew and was faced with the duty of keeping the country safe would do the same thing.  Obama has provided the best possible evidence imaginable to prove those claims true. 

Conservatives would love to bash Obama for being weak on Terrorism so that, in the event of another attack, they can blame him (and Cheney, in last night's interview, left open that possibility by suggesting Obama may suffer from unknown failures).  If it were at all possible, they'd be out accusing him of abandoning critical programs that Keep us Safe; that's what they do best.  But they cannot with a straight face claim that Obama has abandoned their core approach, so they do the only thing they can do:  acknowledge that he has continued and strengthened it and point out that it proves they were right -- and he was wrong -- all along.   If Obama has indeed changed his mind over the last two years as a result of all the Secret Scary Things he's seen as President, then I genuinely believe that he and the Democratic Party owe a heartfelt, public apology to Bush, Cheney and the GOP for all the harsh insults they spewed about them for years based on policies that they are now themselves aggressively continuing.

Obama has won the War on Terror debate -- for the American Right.  And as Dick Cheney's interview last night demonstrates, they're every bit as appreciative as they should be.

 

UPDATE:  The Council on American-Islamic Relations today sued the Obama administration on behalf of Gulet Mohamed, demanding that they allow the American teenager back into his own country.  The background on this travesty is here.

The U.S. role in Gulet Mohamed's detention

I've written several times about the plight of Gulet Mohamed, the American teenager detained without charges more than three weeks ago in Kuwait by unknown captors, relentlessly interrogated about numerous matters of interest to the Obama administration, and, he claims, severely beaten and tortured.  One of the central questions of this episode has been this:  who is responsible for what has happened to him -- the Kuwaiti government or his own country's government?  From the beginning, it seemed highly implausible that a country as subservient to the U.S. as Kuwait would detain and relentlessly interrogate an American citizen without the assent or at least the knowledge of the U.S.  Those suspicions were heightened by (a) the strange refusal of the U.S. government to act to help their own citizen (instead repeatedly sending FBI agents to aggressively interrogate him), (b) the interrogation focus on Anwar Awlaki, an obsession of the Obama administration, and (c) the placement by the U.S. of Mohamed on the no-fly list, preventing his return.

Mohamed's family has been insisting that it is the Americans behind his detention, while State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley denied this and insisted that they have provided Mohamed with consular assistance.  But new facts have emerged strongly suggesting that Crowley's denials are false, and that it is indeed the Americans responsible for the 19-year-old's ongoing, due-process-free detention.

When Mohamed was detained, none of his family members knew where he was or what had happened, and learned of it only because -- once he was transferred to a deportation center -- he was able to use an illicitly smuggled cellphone to call family members and journalists (The New York Times' Mark Mazzetti wrote an article about his plight and I posted a recorded interview with him from detention).  Once they learned of it, Gulet's older brother, Mohad, traveled from the U.S. to Kuwait to work on securing his release.  I spoke with Mohad last night about these new events and the 8-minute interview can be heard on the player below.

On Friday, Kuwaiti officials told Gulet's family that they had no cause or desire to detain Gulet.  To the contrary, as Mother Jones' Nick Baumann reported, the Kuwaits told his family that they would release Mohamed and deport him as soon as his family presented a purchased air ticket back to the U.S. (under Kuwaiti immigration law, foreign nationals being deported must travel on a direct flight by plane back to their country of citizenship).  Following the Kuwaitis' instructions, Gulet's family purchased and brought to the detention center a one-way ticket on United Airlines from Kuwait to Dulles International Airport in Washington, which was scheduled to depart last night.

Last night, the Kuwaiti deportation officers took Gulet, along with the ticket, to the airport and were prepared to send him back to the U.S.  But when he attempted to board the plane, he was told that he was barred from doing so.  According to Mohad, no reason was given, but it is presumably due to the U.S.'s placement of him on the no-fly list (which State Department officials, to The New York Times, previously confirmed they had done).  As a result, Gulet -- thinking he was finally headed home -- instead was returned to his detention facility, where he remains, and his prospects for release are now very unclear.

What's going on here is a pure travesty.  As an American citizen, Gulet has the absolute right to return to and re-enter his country.  But by secretly placing him on the no-fly list while he was halfway around the world -- and providing no information about why he was so placed -- the U.S. Government is denying him his right to return.  Worse, they know that this action is not only preventing him from returning, but is keeping the 19-year-old in a state of absolute legal limbo, where's he imprisoned by a country that admits it has no cause for holding him and does not want to hold him, yet which cannot release him.  The U.S. government has the obligation to assist its citizens when they end up detained without cause; here, they are doing the opposite:  they're deliberately ensuring it continues. 

If there's any evidence that he has has done anything wrong, he should be charged, indicted, and brought back to the U.S. for trial.  What the Obama administration is doing instead is accomplishing what they could not do if he were in the U.S.:  holding him without a shred of due process, interrogating him without a lawyer present, and -- if his credible claims are to believed -- using beatings and torture to get the information it wants (or false information:  Gulet told me he was very tempted to falsely confess to make the beatings stop).  This abuse of the no-fly list is a common tactic used by the U.S. Government to circumvent all legal and constitutional constraints when it comes to its own citizens; this case just happens to be extra viscerally repellent.

Interview with Mohad Mohamed:

 

Applying U.S. principles on Internet freedom

Hillary Clinton, speech on Internet freedom, Newseum, Washington, DC, January, 21, 2010:

Countries or individuals that engage in cyber attacks should face consequences and international condemnation. In an interconnected world, an attack on one nation's networks can be an attack on all.

The New York Times, Saturday:

Over the past two years, according to intelligence and military experts familiar with its operations, Dimona has taken on a new, equally secret role . . . . Dimona tested the effectiveness of the Stuxnet computer worm, a destructive program that appears to have wiped out roughly a fifth of Iran's nuclear centrifuges. . . . the operations there, as well as related efforts in the United States, are among the newest and strongest clues suggesting that the virus was designed as an American-Israeli project to sabotage the Iranian program. . . . The biggest single factor in putting time on the nuclear clock appears to be Stuxnet, the most sophisticated cyberweapon ever deployed.

Clinton's Internet freedom speech:

During his visit to China in November, President Obama held a town hall meeting with an online component to highlight the importance of the internet. In response to a question that was sent in over the internet, he defended the right of people to freely access information, and said that the more freely information flows, the stronger societies become. He spoke about how access to information helps citizens to hold their governments accountable, generates new ideas, and encourages creativity. The United States' belief in that truth is what brings me here today.

Salon, December 6, 2010:

Attorney General Eric Holder told reporters today that he is personally involved in the ongoing criminal probe of WikiLeaks and that he authorized "a number of things to be done so that we can get to the bottom of this and hold people accountable."

Clinton's Internet speech:

Some countries have erected electronic barriers that prevent their people from accessing portions of the world's networks. . . . They have violated the privacy of citizens who engage in non-violent political speech. These actions contravene the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, which tells us that all people have the right "to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers."

Huffington Post, December 4, 2010:

Talking about WikiLeaks on Facebook or Twitter could endanger your job prospects, a State Department official warned students at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs this week.

An email from SIPA's Office of Career Services went out Tuesday afternoon with a caution from the official, an alumnus of the school. Students who will be applying for jobs in the federal government could jeopardize their prospects by posting links to WikiLeaks online, or even by discussing the leaked documents on social networking sites, the official was quoted as saying.

ACLU, September, 2010:

DHS asserts the right to look though the contents of a traveler's electronic devices -- including laptops, cameras and cell phones -- and to keep the devices or copy the contents in order to continue searching them once the traveler has been allowed to enter the U.S., regardless of whether the traveler is suspected of any wrongdoing . . . . Documents obtained by the ACLU in response to a separate Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit for records related to the DHS policy reveal that more than 6,600 travelers, nearly half of whom are American citizens, were subjected to electronic device searches at the border between October 1, 2008 and June 2, 2010.

Clinton's Internet freedom speech:

But amid this unprecedented surge in connectivity, we must also recognize that these technologies are not an unmitigated blessing. These tools are also being exploited to undermine human progress and political rights. . . . technologies with the potential to open up access to government and promote transparency can also be hijacked by governments to crush dissent and deny human rights.

The New York Times, Sunday:

Tunisia's president, Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, fled his country on Friday night, capitulating after a month of mounting protests calling for an end to his 23 years of authoritarian rule. . . . The United States had counted Tunisia under Mr. Ben Ali as an important ally in battling terrorism. . . .

The protesters, led at first by unemployed college graduates like Mr. Bouazizi and later joined by workers and young professionals, found grist for the complaints in leaked cables from the United States Embassy in Tunisia, released by WikiLeaks, that detailed the self-dealing and excess of the president's family. . ."Thank you, Al Jazeera," read one sign, commending the Arab news channel for its nightly coverage of the unrest in the past month -- long before the Western news media took serious notice. Many here credit Al Jazeera's broadcasts with forging the sense of solidarity and empowerment that moved Tunisians across the country to take to the streets simultaneously.

The U.S. has spent years warning that cyber warfare is the New Terrorism of the 21st Century; former DNI Michael McConnell even demanded in The Washington Post that the Internet be re-engineered to vest government and the private sector much greater surveillance controls to combat it (without disclosing the huge profits his Booz Allen clients stand to gain from such measures).  All the while, the U.S. was collaborating with the Israelis to engineer the most sophisticated and destructive cyber warfare weapon the world has ever known, one it secretly unleashed last year (and that's to say nothing of the assassination of Iranian scientists which this weekend's New York Times article obliquely mentions without expressing any interest in knowing who the culprits are).  Meanwhile, the Obama administration's always-escalating war on whistleblowers -- symbolized by its recent digging into Twitter accounts of WikiLeaks volunteers -- is accompanied by sermons about the evils of punishing those who expose government wrongdoing and deceit and of exploiting Internet technologies to stifle transparency and accountability.

But it's the Tunisia example that is most striking.  Virtually everyone is celebrating this triumph over oppression, with hopes that it can spark similar events in other nations in that region.  The causes of this uprising are complex and difficult to discern; it's unclear how large of a role, if any, the WikiLeaks cables or Al Jazeera reports actually played in inspiring it.  But what is clear is that cables released by WikiLeaks -- which, we should recall, were allegedly first obtained and disclosed by Bradley Manning -- graphically detailed for the Tunisian citizenry the opulence and corruption of Tunisia's U.S.-backed ruling family, and they were amplified by Al Jazeera.  By stark contrast, the U.S. Government -- under both Bush and Obama --- were steadfast supporters of this regime. 

Exposing this type of corruption, oppression and deceit, and spurring these types of reforms, is exactly what Bradley Manning said (if one believes the chats) was his reason for his wanting the world to see these documents.  And using the Internet to promote what Hillary Clinton called "human progress and political rights" is precisely one of WikiLeaks' primary objectives.  Yet the real agents of harnessing Interent and media technologies to promote freedom and human rights in Tunisia (and elsewhere) are either currently imprisoned by the U.S. (Manning), being harassed and on the verge of being prosecuted (WikiLeaks), or constantly demonized in the American media (Al Jazeera).  And that's all being done by the same government that stands behind these repressive regimes and punishes those who seek to expose them -- all while lecturing the world about the evils of those who seek to stifle transparency and freedom.  It's hard to imagine anyone outside of the U.S. reacting with anything other than scornful laughter in the face of these American lectures on Internet freedom.

Homeland Security's laptop seizures: Interview with Rep. Sanchez

For those who regularly write and read about civil liberties abuses, it's sometimes easy to lose perspective about just how extreme and outrageous certain erosions are.  One becomes inured to them, and even severe incursions start to seem ordinary.  Such was the case, at least for me, with Homeland Security's practice of detaining American citizens upon their re-entry into the country, and as part of that detention, literally seizing their electronic products -- laptops, cellphones, Blackberries and the like -- copying and storing the data, and keeping that property for months on end, sometimes never returning it.  Worse, all of this is done not only without a warrant, probable cause or any oversight, but even without reasonable suspicion that the person is involved in any crime.  It's completely standard-less, arbitrary, and unconstrained.  There's no law authorizing this power nor any judicial or Congressional body overseeing or regulating what DHS is doing.  And the citizens to whom this is done have no recourse -- not even to have their property returned to them.

When you really think about it, it's simply inconceivable that the U.S. Government gets away with doing this.  Seizing someone's laptop, digging through it, recording it all, storing the data somewhere, and then distributing it to various agencies is about the most invasive, privacy-destroying measure imaginable.  A laptop and its equivalents reveal whom you talk to, what you say, what you read, what you write, what you view, what you think, and virtually everything else about your life.  It can -- and often does -- contain not only the most private and intimate information about you, but also information which the government is legally barred from accessing (attorney/client or clergy/penitent communications, private medical and psychiatric information and the like).  But these border seizures result in all of that being limitlessly invaded.  This is infinitely more invasive than the TSA patdowns that caused so much controversy just two months ago.  What kind of society allows government agents -- without any cause -- to seize all of that whenever they want, without limits on whom they can do this to, what they access, how they can use it:  even without anyone knowing what they're doing?  

This Homeland Security conduct has finally received some long-overdue attention over the past several months as a result of people associated with WikiLeaks or Bradley Manning being subjected to it.  In July, Jacob Appelbaum, a WikiLeaks volunteer, was detained for hours at Newark Airport, had his laptop and cellphones seized (the cellphones still have not been returned), and was told that the same thing would happen to him every time he tried to re-enter the country; last week, it indeed occurred again when he arrived in Seattle after a trip to Iceland, only this time he was afraid to travel with a laptop or cellphone and they were thus unable to seize them (they did seize his memory sticks, onto which he had saved a copy of the Bill of Rights).  The same thing happened to 23-year-old American David House after he visited Bradley Manning in the Quantico brig and worked for Manning's legal defense fund:  in November, House returned to the U.S. from a vacation in Mexico with his girlfriend and her family, was detained, and had his laptop and memory sticks seized (they were returned only after he retained the ACLU of Massachusetts to demand their return).

But this is happening to far more than people associated with WikiLeaks.  As a result of writing about this, I've spoken with several writers, filmmakers, and activists who are critics of the government and who have been subjected to similar seizures -- some every time they re-enter the country.  In September, the ACLU filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of these suspicionless searches; one of the plaintiffs on whose behalf they sued is Pascal Abidor, a 26-year-old dual French-American citizen who had his laptop seized at the border when returning to the U.S. last year:

Abidor was traveling from Montreal to New York on an Amtrak train in May when he had his laptop searched and confiscated by Custom and Border Patrol officers. Abidor, an Islamic Studies Ph.D. student, was questioned, handcuffed, taken off the train and kept in a holding cell for several hours before being released without charge. When his laptop was returned 11 days later, there was evidence that many of his personal files, including research, photos and chats with his girlfriend, had been searched.

A FOIA request from the ACLU revealed that in the 18-month period beginning October 1, 2008, more than 6,600 people -- roughly half of whom are American citizens -- were subjected to electronic device searches at the border by DHS, all without a search warrant.  But the willingness of courts to act is unclear at best.  The judiciary, with a few exceptions, has been shamelessly deferential in the post-9/11 era to even the most egregious assertions of Executive Branch power in the name of security.  Combine that with the stunning ignorance of technology on the part of many judges -- many of whom have been on the bench a long time and are insulated by their office from everyday life -- and it's not hard to envision these practices being endorsed.  Indeed, two appellate courts have thus far held -- reversing the rulings of lower courts -- that Homeland Security agents do not even need to show "reasonable suspicion" to search and seize a citizens' electronic products when re-entering their country.  Some lower court judges, however, continue to rule the practice unconstitutional:  see here for one federal judge's emphatic rejection of the Obama DOJ's arguments as to why such searches fall outside of the Bill of Rights.

In a July, 2008 Senate hearing, then-Sen. Russ Feingold hosted the Association of Corporate Travel Executives, which vehemently opposes this practice, and Feingold said this:

Over the last two years, reports have surfaced that customs agents have been asking U.S. citizens to turn over their cell phones or give them the passwords to their laptops. The travelers have been given a choice between complying with the request or being kept out of their own country. They have been forced to wait for hours while customs agents reviewed and sometimes copied the contents of the electronic devices. In some cases, the laptops or cell phones were confiscated and returned weeks or even months later, with no explanation.

Back then, this was painted as yet another Bush/Cheney assault on civil liberties, so one frequently heard denunciations like this from leading Democrats such as Sen. Pat Leahy:  "It may surprise many Americans that their basic constitutional rights do not exist at our ports of entry even to protect private information contained on a computer. It concerns me, and I believe that actions taken under the cover of these decisions have the potential to turn the Constitution on its head."  But now that this practice has continued -- and seemingly expanded -- under the Obama presidency, few in Congress seem to care.

Indeed, even in the wake of increasing complaints, Congress has done nothing to curb these abuses or even regulate them.  But at least one member of the House, Rep. Loretta Sanchez, a California Democrat, is attempting to do something.  Rep. Sanchez has introduced a very modest bill -- H.R. 216 -- requiring Homeland Security to issue rules governing these searches and seizures so that they are no longer able to operate completely in the dark and without standards.  The bill would also impose some reporting requirements on DHS (Section 4); provide some very modest rights to those subjected to these seizures as well as some minor procedural limits on DHS agents (Sec. 2); and would compel "a civil liberties impact assessment of the rule, as prepared by the Officer for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties of the Department of Homeland Security" (Sec. 2(b)(9)).

Yesterday, I spoke with Rep. Sanchez about her bill, and the 8-minute interview can be heard on the player below.  I actually anticipated this interview would be somewhat confrontational because I think this bill -- though well-intentioned -- is woefully inadequate and potentially even counter-productive.  The bill does not in any way curb the central abuse:  Homeland Security's seizure of people's property without any probable cause or even reasonable suspicion (a bill introduced by then-Sen. Feingold would have barred all such searches in the absence of reasonable suspicion).  Rep. Sanchez's bill also leaves it up to DHS to promulgate its own rules rather than having Congress fulfill its oversight duties by imposing rules on the agency.  And worst of all, the bill could be seen as codifying -- granting the Congressional stamp of approval and thus strengthening -- Homeland Security's power to conduct these suspicionless seizures.

But the more I listened to her, the more I thought that perhaps this is a good first step -- at least arguably better than nothing (I'm still ambivalent on that question).  At the very least, this bill would force into the sunlight information about what DHS is actually doing, perhaps generating some controversy and enabling more stringent restrictions.  It would provide some formal mechanism for citizens to complain about abuse and try to have their laptops returned (though, as computer expert Jacob Appelbaum told me, he would never trust a laptop that had been in the custody of government agents, as it could easily be fixed, without detection, to surveil all future use).  And it would impose at least some guidelines against invading attorney/client and other sensitive data (though without any enforcement mechanism, it'd be less like a requirement and more like a suggestion that would likely be ignored). 

One point Rep. Sanchez emphasized is that even if she wanted a stronger bill (and it seems clear she does), the chance of enacting it in the GOP House is very small.  After all, the Democratic Congress did nothing about this problem.  But that underscores one amazing point:  the right-wing of the Republican Party and its "Tea Party" faction endlessly tout their devotion to limited federal government powers, individual rights, property rights, and the Constitution.  If they were even minimally genuine in those claims, few things would offend and anger them more than federal agents singling out and detaining whichever citizens they want, and then taking their property, digging through and recording their most personal and private data -- all without any oversight or probable cause.  Yet with very few exceptions (a few groups on the Right, including religious conservatives, opposed some excesses of the Patriot Act, while the small libertarian faction of the GOP oppose many of these abuses), they seem indifferent to, even supportive of, the very policies that most violently injure their ostensible principles.

My interview with Rep. Sanchez:

Brookings' "centrist" opposition to the rule of law

(updated below)

Like many other self-proclaimed "scholars" of the Brookings Institution, Benjamin Wittes never tires of branding himself a "centrist."  But like Brookings itself, this so-called centrism is devoid of any coherent worldview and instead has one overarching purpose:  to defend Beltway elite prerogatives and specifically the bipartisan orthodoxies of the National Security State.  That's why Brookings is so lavishly funded and why it exists, and that -- in almost every instance -- is what D.C. denizens mean when they talk about "centrism":  subservient defenders of the status quo.

Dutifully fulfilling his function, Wittes has spent the last several years joining with former Bush OLC lawyer Jack Goldsmith to defend indefinite detention without charges as well as the creation of "national security courts" to allow "preventive detention."  He scorned those who objected to Bush's illegal, warrantless eavesdropping programs as simplistic, ignorant partisans.  When Congress drastically expanded Bush's eavesdropping powers with the 6-month enactment of the Protect America Act, Wittes went to The New Republic to (of course) defend the new powers, prompting Matt Yglesias to say that Wittes was merely fulfilling "his appointed role as 'liberal who agrees with conservatives about all the topics he writes about'."  Wittes was recently held up as the face of "American exceptionalism" by international law professor Kevin Jon Heller for explicitly justifying America's right to impose double standards in light of its objective superiority.  Behold Reasonable Sober Serious Centrism!

Yesterday, Wittes wrote a new post which more clearly than anything I've read in some time conveys exactly what role he and his self-proclaimed "centrist" comrades (including the Brookings Institution) play in our political culture.  Wittes wrote to criticize a "report card" issued by Human Rights First on Obama's civil liberties record; in particular, he takes issue with HRF's awarding of an "F" to Obama in the area of "Accountability for Torture."  The human rights group says that this failing grade is deserved because Obama "has failed to hold accountable those who authorized and perpetrated torture against prisoners in U.S. custody"; independently, the failure "to provide redress to victims (see 'State Secrets' below) is a violation of international law and diminishes the credibility of the United States as standard-bearer for human rights worldwide."

Wittes does not contest any of HRF's factual claims.  Instead, he believes Obama's active obstruction of investigations is one of the President's most commendable acts.  It's really worth examining what he writes because it so vividly exposes the mindset of our Centrist, Serious think tank "scholars" who devote themselves to serving those in power:

One of the more courageous things the Obama administration has done is to generally decline to engage in retroactive investigation of the last administration on matters of interrogation policy.

I've heard a lot of twisted reasoning employed to defend the full-scale immunity which Obama has vested in Bush officials for their chronic lawbreaking.  But I doubt even Robert Gibbs would be willing to stand up in public and call it "courageous."  Obama's decision to protect Bush-era crimes from accountability earned him the praise of conservatives, the gratitude of leading Democratic officials (petrified that their own culpability would be exposed), and the virtually unanimous support of the entire establishment media class.  Initiating investigations and prosecutions of Bush-era crimes would have required substantial political courage; by contrast, blocking all such accountability was the easiest, most cowardly route, as it's what all of official Washington was demanding.  That's the path Obama took.

Also, can someone please tell me what a "retroactive investigation" is?  Are there any other kinds?  I don't believe it's possible to investigate or prosecute acts that occur in the future.  This railing against "retroactive investigations" is nothing more than a deceitful Orwellian concoction by Beltway propagandists to justify why elites -- but nobody else -- is shielded from accountability for their acts.

The lingo is "looking forward, not backwards," and it has greatly frustrated the left.

The hallmark of an establishment "centrist" -- the admission fee -- is to declare loudly that one harbors contempt for the views of "the left" and takes comfort in its losses.  One regularly finds this tactic in Wittes' writings and from most who are eager to have the world see them as "centrists." 

To be sure, the administration's refusal has been imperfect. Attorney General Holder did reopen certain closed matters for further investigation -- areas in which CIA personnel reportedly operated beyond the guidance the Justice Department had given it.  

Wittes is angry because Holder has said that there might be prosecutions of those specific, low-level CIA interrogators who were so brutal, sadistic, and criminal that they tortured even beyond the permission slips given by John Yoo and the Bush DOJ.  There have been many deaths -- likely as many as 100 or more -- from American interrogation practices.  Gen. Barry McCaffrey said:  "We tortured people unmercifully. We probably murdered dozens of them during the course of that, both the armed forces and the C.I.A."  But Wittes is upset that those who caused those deaths might be subjected to legal accountability.  He literally wants people to get away with murder because they did it as part of the U.S. Government.  Did he mention that he's a "centrist"? 

More generally, there has actually been a great deal of accountability for past detention policy -- the disclosure of internal memos, for example. 

The U.S. is the largest Prison State in the world.  We have more people in prison than any other country in the world, both in absolute terms (i.e., more than China and other much more populous countries) and in terms of rate of imprisonment (more than the most repressive nations).   We imprison ordinary Americans for the pettiest of offenses, imposing on them shockingly long prison terms with the most merciless conditions in the Western World.  Would the Brookings Institution or Benjamin Wittes ever object to any of that as gratuitously punitive or excessively focused on "the past"?  Please.  That's not whose interests they're funded to defend.  

But when it comes to political elites, everything changes:  merely releasing a few memos is not only accountability, but "a great deal of accountability."  Courtrooms and prisons aren't for our powerful political officials whom centrists revere and serve.  It's only for the dirty rabble.  For elites, you just shine a bit of light on what they did and let them be on their merry, wealthy way.   Let's just repeat that:  for creating a worldwide torture regime, releasing a few memos constitutes "a great deal of accountability."  You've just confronted the living, breathing face of elite lawlessness.  And it's very, very centrist.

The first of these is that the administration is not going to do violence to the two-century-old tradition in American life of incoming presidents' not prosecuting outgoing ones. Prison has only the most limited role in transitions of power in a democracy–and that role certainly does not include good faith actions to protect the country, even ones of which we come to be ashamed in the cold light of later days. 

Those who favor what Wittes calls "the two-century-old tradition in American life of incoming presidents' not prosecuting outgoing ones" cannot and do not ever answer this question:  if Presidents are shielded from prosecution for criminal acts they commit in office, then what possible motivation do they have to refrain from criminality?  None.  That's exactly why high-level lawbreaking is so rampant:  because Presidents know they enjoy legal immunity -- are above the law -- and that even when they get caught red-handed breaking the law, an army of royal court sycophants and hangers-on in the political and media class -- like Benjamin Wittes -- will crawl forward to insist that they are too important and noble to be punished.  As Gen. Antonio Taguba said after completing his formal investigation into the interrogation program:  "there is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes.  The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account."  

What's most extraordinary about this, of course, is that this is exactly the form of elite immunity we were not supposed to have.  In fact, this is what the Founders waged a war to emancipate themselves from.  As Thomas Jefferson put it in an April 16, 1784, letter to George Washington, the foundation on which any constitution must rest is "the denial of every preeminence but that annexed to legal office."  Even the executive-power-revering Hamilton in Federalist 71 argued: "the fundamental principles of good government" require that even the President "be subordinate to the laws." "Law" simply makes no sense, and has no good function, unless all are subordinate to its dictates. 

In Federalist 57, Madison emphasized that equal application of the law to political elites was a prerequisite for both a free and cohesive society, and conversely, warned of the consequences should the laws not be applied as stringently to the political class as to ordinary citizens:

The house of representatives. . . can make no law which will not have its full operation on themselves and their friends, as well as the great mass of society. This has always been deemed one of the strongest bonds by which human policy can connect the rulers and the people together. It creates between them that communion of interest, and sympathy of sentiments, of which few governments have furnished examples; but without which every government degenerates into tyranny.

George Washington vowed, in a December, 1795 letter, that there must never be immunity for wrongdoing by high government officials: "The executive branch of this government never has, nor will suffer, while I preside, any improper conduct of its officers to escape with impunity."

All of this has been tossed to the side, radically reversed.  We now have a whole class of highly funded spokespeople whose central mission in life is to insist on exactly the exemptions and immunities which elites -- as the monarch's cronies -- enjoyed in 18th Century England but were never supposed to possess in the United States.  Hence, we find blatant demands for immunity from the rule of law for our most powerful political officials from the likes of Benjamin Wittes (as Joseph Stiglitz documents, the same anti-rule-of-law mentality is now visible in demanding that defrauding mortgage banks and other financial elites be shielded from all consequences).  It's one thing to advocate for such corrupt and radical prerogatives for the nation's most powerful factions; it's another entirely to do so under the banner of "courage" and "centrist" reasonableness.  

 

UPDATE:  I neglected to mention Wittes' trite invocation of this platitude:  this is about "the criminalization of policy differences -- nothing more or less."  Anyone who dismisses as a mere "policy difference" the creation of a worldwide torture regime -- featuring tactics the U.S. had long prosecuted and condemned when used by others and which were the signatures of history's most brutal tyrannies -- is exhibiting some truly warped thinking:  not just legally and politically warped, but morally warped.