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FBI Coerced Confession Deemed "Classified"
Steve Bergstein is one of several who have blogged about a recent court ruling that reads like most any bestselling crime novel. Apparently, when the court originally posted their decision (complete with backstory) it detailed how a coerced confession was obtained by the FBI from Abdallah Higazy in relation to the 9/11 attacks. The details, however, were later removed and deemed "classified". "As I read the opinion I realized it was a 44 page epic, too long for me to print out. I blogged about the opinion while I read it online and then posted the blog as I ate lunch. Then something strange happened: a few minutes after I posted the blog, the opinion vanished from the Court of Appeals website! [...] The next day, the Court of Appeals reissued the Higazy opinion. With a redaction. The court simply omitted from the revised decision facts about how the FBI agent extracted the false confession from Higazy. For some reason, this information is classified."
If by "classified" they mean mean "stuff that makes us look bad". Gotta love politics and public image. Perhaps Bush taught them a few too many unwholesome lessons of corruption?
What were the portions that were taken out? Details, not generalities.
Sounds like they learned it from George Bush.
I see some confiscations in this blogger's future.
regards to Caddyshack
So when is this guy gonna start blogging about what happens to American soldiers captured alive by Islamists?
Just wondering:
Wouldn't that false confession be covered by copyright laws? Isn't the detainee/suspect owner of this copyright?
Here's the unredacted opinion and here's the redacted opinion.
Imagine the radio really did belong to a terrorist... By coercing a confession from this guy, the FBI basically would be letting the *actual* terrorist go free and clear. If this doesn't make sense to you, imagine the case of a rapist on the loose. Imagine that every time a woman was raped, the police chose from a hat and arrested and tried a random person. Would that make your wife safer on the streets alone at night? Having a random guy in jail while the real rapist is still out on the hunt? What's more, thinking that the rapist is in jail, she might be MORE inclined to enter into riskier situations.
This kind of "law enforcement" actually makes us LESS safe than simply doing nothing at all. Is the FBI *really* staffed by living, thinking humans? How could they possibly do this kind of thing and not be incredibly ashamed of themselves!?
This is a perfect example of why I always, always, always get a local copy of anything I find hot and interesting. Court decisions are also always in PDF. Just download the puppy and hold onto it.
If it is a web page, and you have the full Acrobat, then use the web capture facility to get a copy of it and store it away.
The web is wonderful. But it has more opportunities to be "corrected" than the Soviet Union did during the Stalin's purges of the 30s and 40s.
Yours,
Jordan
I thought we were meant to be the good guys that don't do this kind of thing. We should do the right thing even if it is harder otherwise what are we fighting for?
How can you rely on a confession extracted by force anyway? At least I know I'd say/admit to anything to just stop having my fingernails pulled out with pliers or whatever.
You know, this story is appalling, for several reasons: 1. Some information gets classified, that probably shouldn't be, and the fact that 2. The horse is out of the barn and shows that data, once posted, is impossible to recall, and then they further heighten interest in it by classifying it and raising a stink about it. Their actions have almost ensured world-wide dissemination.
What is worse is that their reaction to this will mostly likely make reasonable public access to information, rulings, testimony, almost impossible to get to.
On a side note, and dealing with my subject line: Guys, you can't have it both ways. Reading /. and listening to Air America, George Bush is either an evil genius able to mastermind these great conspiracies, or, he's dumb as a rock. How about not inserting him into the situation at all. It would serve not to marginalize the discussion and keep blame where it needs to be, the beureaucrats that make these decisions.
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
This is why a confession should never be trusted on its own — without other evidence. Nor is it really trusted on its own by the courts in free countries, such as ours — as evidenced by this very case.
They may have coerced an admission from him, that it was his device, but without details on where he got it, and how he used it, that admission is quite worthless even if he were scared for his family's life enough to not backpaddle from the addmission in court... I'm quite proud, that he was not sufficiently scared, though...
And, finally, we only know the details of the coercion from one side. The FBI agent, according to the article, merely "did not contest" the fact of coercion. That's not an admission of guilt by any measure...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
That knock on the door is the FBI wanting to know why you want to know, and why you didn't RTFA?
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
To Whom It May Concern:
Coerced false data? Whatever. It's better than NO data at all.
Sincerely,
Bush
P.S. terrorism terrorism 9/11 WMD terrorism
Don't we have a Politics section for stuff like this?
For all of the bashing the left does about Bush, what is more telling is that Bush didn't really create the modern government that is capable of doing this. Everyone has had a hand in this. A police state machine is a police state machine, all the time, not just when a "good guy" is driving it. Stop attacking Bush, and start looking at the machine!
Had there been no secretive FBI, no secretive CIA, no emphasis on the Federal power from the get go, none of this could have happened. Everyone looks at Bush / Cheney as if he were the mastermind of some vast conspiracy, when the practical matter is that we have had almost 75 years of a massive federal government on a wartime footing, just waiting for the next enemy to arrive. These agents don't need orders to torture people or to kill perceived enemies. They have been waiting to do this their whole lives. They need orders NOT TO, and they really need to be not employed at all.
Instead, what the left wing is arguing for is a banana republic type of government - rule by personality, when instead, the best lesson to learn is that the government is the problem, and the solution to ensure our freedom is to deconstruct the government from the get go. If we could only put the "good guy" in charge of the police state, everything will be ok. Except that, we will still have a police state.
Look at the facts. What Democrats opposed passage of the full 9/11 commission recommendations - essentially turn the USA into a police state. What Democrat has offered to repeal USA PATRIOT? What Democrat has volunteered to narrow the scope of CIA and FBI? There will be more Federal terror, not less, before this unfortunate behavior winds its course. We have to learn to discipline ourselves as voters - that, every time we panic and ask our government to protect us - we are really just empowering a bunch of thugs to enslave us.
This is my sig.
I pity the FBI of 2007. In my worldline, they just use TSS to protect classified information.
Forget guys in black suits showing up at your door; that just scares people and makes them want to revolt. Quietly, with the least amount off disturbance possible, information is erased. Those who are really persistent at this kind of thing (create an automated bot to spam now-classified information) are just 100% TSSed. After they can't collect their paycheck, use their bank, pay their taxes, pay their bills, access their music collection for a few days/weeks/months, they give in, they always do.
Trusted Computing, what a brilliant idea.
It reminds me of the Jim Morin cartoon last week. That was about another case of "national security" being used to suppress information that was embarrassing to the government, but the basic idea is the same.
There's lots of historic evidence now that official secrecy in the US (and all other governments) rarely has anything to do with "national security". The primary reason for secrecy has always been to prevent a government's own citizens from knowing about the inner workings of their own government.
Suppression of evidence that would exonerate a defendant in a criminal court case is the most egregious sort of misuse of official secrecy, true, and it's routinely used for things much less important than this. Occasionally, it is actually used to prevent a nation's external enemies to learn something embarrassing. But mostly it's just to keep internal enemies (aka "citizens") from learning things that the government doesn't want you or me (or a judge) to know.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
"By coercing a confession from this guy, the FBI basically would be letting the *actual* terrorist go free and clear. If this doesn't make sense to you, imagine the case of a rapist on the loose. Imagine that every time a woman was raped, the police chose from a hat and arrested and tried a random person. Would that make your wife safer on the streets alone at night? Having a random guy in jail while the real rapist is still out on the hunt? What's more, thinking that the rapist is in jail, she might be MORE inclined to enter into riskier situations."
This is basically what happened in Fahrenheit 451. The police were trying to catch the main character, with thousands of people watching the chase live on TV. When the police realized they wouldn't find him, they went into their public files to find someone else eccentric to catch, just to give the audience some closure (and to maintain their "perfect record" appearance).
From the redacted opinion:
Of course, we only have your word for this now. How long before you become classified?.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Government secrecy will *always* be used to hide incompetence and evil.
There is *no* reason for secrecy within our government. There are *no* reasons for classified material at all. Not any more.
We live in a unipolar world. We are the "strong". There isn't any more reason for us to play cloak and dagger, all we have to do is sit back, have proper, up-front security measures, utilize common sense public surveillance (i.e. patrol officers in problem areas, surveillance inside airports, monitoring of known "bad guy" websites), and we'll be safe.
I cannot, for the life of me, imagine why any of the secrecy provisions pushed forth by the Bush administration contribute to our security.
For that matter, I don't believe that any of the other CIA/FBI "black ops" contribute either. Rendition might make some warhawks in the executive branch feel good, but it is nonsensical that it helps to protect our nation. Better XRAY machines, and locks on cockpit doors protect our nations. Paying our troops more money protects our nation, as would federal marshalls on planes, and a whole bunch of other measures.
But taking our suspected enemies to Libya and beating the crap out of them? What does that accomplish?
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
Scrapbook is a neat one that you can install for Firefox to keep a record of every page you visit (on your computer). If you visit a web page and discover that it's different at a later time, you can browse Scrapbook for the old version of the page. The bonus is that it seems to keep the page format and structure intact.
Hahaha... look at you people on this site... its like your personal liberal panic room whenever something happens to a terrorist. How about a post on "9/11 was an inside job"? With all the libtard kooks on this page, it would only make sense. You could spin it as "a slashdot investigative story".
Who would have thought? This site would degenerate into just another liberal troll hole, where they use a Mod system to keep the group-think in tact. Its funny coming here to see the crap they try to run with... 10 years of slashdot! LOL! And its going down the crap hole...
OK, a search on Google News on "Higazy" when the story broke showed a whole SIX hits, went down to zero for a while, then went back up to one. Any idea what's going on here?
Higazy alleges that during the polygraph, Templeton told him that he should cooperate,
and explained that if Higazy did not cooperate, the FBI would make his brother "live in scrutiny"
and would "make sure that Egyptian security gives [his] family hell." Templeton later admitted
that he knew how the Egyptian security forces operated: "that they had a security service, that
their laws are different than ours, that they are probably allowed to do things in that country
where they don't advise people of their rights, they don't - yeah, probably about torture, sure."
Higazy later said, "I knew that I couldn't prove my innocence, and I knew that my family was in
danger." He explained that "[t]he only thing that went through my head was oh, my God, I am
screwed and my family's in danger. If I say this device is mine, I'm screwed and my family is
going to be safe. If I say this device is not mine, I'm screwed and my family's in danger. And
Agent Templeton made it quite clear that cooperate had to mean saying something else other than
this device is not mine."
Higazy explained why he feared for his family:
The Egyptian government has very little tolerance for anybody who is --they're
suspicious of being a terrorist. To give you an idea, Saddam's security force--as they
later on were called his henchmen--a lot of them learned their methods and techniques in
Egypt; torture, rape, some stuff would be even too sick to . . . . My father is 67. My
mother is 61. I have a brother who developed arthritis at 19. He still has it today. When
the word 'torture' comes at least for my brother, I mean, all they have to do is really just
press on one of these knuckles. I couldn't imagine them doing anything to my sister.
And Higazy added:
[L]et's just say a lot of people in Egypt would stay away from a family that they know or
they believe or even rumored to have anything to do with terrorists and by the same
token, some people who actually could be --might try to get to them and somebody
might actually make a connection. I wasn't going to risk that. I wasn't going to risk that,
so I thought to myself what could I say that he would believe. What could I say that's
convincing? And I said okay.
given this guy milk and warm cookies instead. Then he'd be their pal for life and tell everything he knows about the other bad guys. This story is such a yawner, I had trouble caring enough to type a response. I just don't care that they made a bad guy hurt, I don't care that they withhold information from the other bad guys either.
Here is the redacted part:
Higazy alleges that during the polygraph, Templeton told him that he should cooperate, and explained that if Higazy did not cooperate, the FBI would make his brother "live in scrutiny" and would "make sure that Egyptian security gives [his] family hell." Templeton later admitted that he knew how the Egyptian security forces operated: "that they had a security service, that their laws are different than ours, that they are probably allowed to do things in that country where they don't advise people of their rights, they don't - yeah, probably about torture, sure."
Higazy later said, "I knew that I couldn't prove my innocence, and I knew that my family was in danger." He explained that "[t]he only thing that went through my head was oh, my God, I am screwed and my family's in danger. If I say this device is mine, I'm screwed and my family is going to be safe. If I say this device is not mine, I'm screwed and my family's in danger. And Agent Templeton made it quite clear that cooperate had to mean saying something else other than this device is not mine."
Higazy explained why he feared for his family:
"The Egyptian government has very little tolerance for anybody who is --they're suspicious of being a terrorist. To give you an idea, Saddam's security force--as they later on were called his henchmen--a lot of them learned their methods and techniques in Egypt; torture, rape, some stuff would be even too sick to . . . . My father is 67. My mother is 61. I have a brother who developed arthritis at 19. He still has it today. When the word 'torture' comes at least for my brother, I mean, all they have to do is really just press on one of these knuckles. I couldn't imagine them doing anything to my sister."
And Higazy added:
"[L]et's just say a lot of people in Egypt would stay away from a family that they know or they believe or even rumored to have anything to do with terrorists and by the same token, some people who actually could be --might try to get to them and somebody might actually make a connection. I wasn't going to risk that. I wasn't going to risk that, so I thought to myself what could I say that he would believe. What could I say that's convincing? And I said okay."
...about the issue of privacy and such, you'll stop the gratuitous use of tags and terms like Nazi, fascist, etc.
,Democratic Underground, DailyKOS, etc. Don't expect them to listen to you.
As soon as someone sees this they automatically categorize you as a left wing, rabid, Bush hating, fruitcakes (MoveOn
If you want to see the real story of democracy to fascism in the making, just look at Venezuela.
Chavez...president for life, and the ability of their security forces to arrest and hold citizens without cause or charges...codified in law are just a few of the things to come.
Always print something like that to PDF. You can just delete it later if you need to.
You probably don't realize that not only does torture not work, it actually gives you incredibly bad information.
The suggestion by a poster that they "give him warm milk and cookies" is actually one of many proven methods of interrogation.
Interrogation - the act of questioning. One has a number of people interact with the subject, and one or more of those people takes "the side" of the person being interrogated, bonding with them on many levels.
This works very very often.
It is far more effective, gives highly reliable results, and if cross-referenced, will yield even more results.
In short: Torture does not work. Interrogation - not involving torture - does work.
We'd be far better off spending 1/1000th as much as we waste on military ops against terrorists and hiring trained police interrogators (not torturers) and detectives who understand the social and cultural background of the terrorists.
Mind you, a few nukes in Saudi Arabia would solve the whole problem, since Iraq has nothing to do with 9-11. FYI, Pakistan is not our ally, no matter what they tell you.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
The web is wonderful. But it has more opportunities to be "corrected"...
And the web is the only important and reliable source of information about the world?
Dude, how did you function in the 70s and 80s? You are aware that vast swathes of the world (e.g. most folks over age 35) still operate on the basis of exchanging information via little black marks on paper? And that, for them, the fact that foo.pdf is no longer accessible at http://bar.baz.gov/ means pretty much squat? Defining the "memory hole" as "I can't get it via the Web anymore!" is defining cultural amnesia way, way down.
than the Soviet Union did during the Stalin's purges of the 30s and 40s.
Now this is mere post-modernist hysteria. Those purges which you so carelessly compare to someone taking a PDF file off a public web server involved the systematic murder or imprisonment of millions of people and a state security apparatus of horrifying dimensions. Comparing on the one hand the trivial barrier of having to go to the public library to look up a document, instead of having it dumped electronically into your lap with a mouse click, to on the other hand wholescale murder and terror on a scale unprecedented since the Romans crucified every 50th man at the end of the Jewish War bespeaks appalling historical ignorance or an amazing lack of perspective. What do they teach in schools these days, anyway?
You do realize that the story is how a GOOD GUY was arrested mistakenly, and had his family threatened with torture and possibly death? And then, to cover up their mistake, they made the whole thing classified. So the FBI used the law to cover up the fact that they acted like jackasses. Or like terrorists.
Having been in New York on 9/11, I could personally give a shit what happens to Al Quaeda collaborators. Nothing is bad enough for them. Being an American, however, I know that threating the life of an innocent guy (or even a guy we think is guilty) is a major fuck-up on our part. Say it with me- Torture does not elicit useful evidence. Torture makes enemies out of friends. Torture accomplishes the aims of the terrorists.
You're trollin', it's true, but it can't be said often enough. The FBI fucked up, put American lives in danger. The only way to fix FBI fuckups is to know about them. The more the FBI hides from us, the worse it works, and the better off the bad guys are.
Everyone in the Executive Branch effectively serves "at the pleasure of the President." So if they continue to serve, then their actions, including torture, must please the President.
And don't overlook that the Bush family has a lineage almost as long as the FBI, with Bush the Elder running the CIA (drugs, assassinations, coups, wars), and Prescott Bush and George Herbert Walker collaborating with the Nazis.
Or that as Governor Dubya personally oversaw the execution of over 150 human beings, any of whose lives he could have spared, going so far as to sneeringly mock Karla Faye Tucker's request to spare her life: "'Please,' Bush whimpered, his lips pursed in mock desperation, 'please, don't kill me.'"
(Paging Congressman Stark...Congressman Stark, white courtesy phone.)
Suggesting the FBI taught Dubya about corruption is like suggesting the Generals taught the Globetrotters about basketball.
It's really very simple: Dubya claims the authority of the Presidency, he gets the responsibility along with it. They're not separable - or even separate.
Does Bush really know how to manuipulate people? Surely his staff are really the brains and he's just the puppet.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
go take a look at http://www.nysun.com/article/64860 and you'll see that this case is still up in the air. Looks like gov't is still trying to hide a slipup again.
Oh, you mean non-Bushie? Or do you mean anyone who values the constitution, as in the BIll of Rights, or three branches of government? Or do you mean ... what, exactly?
Infuriate left and right
I agree with what you're saying, but you're missing the forest for the trees. The parent poster correctly points out that in a long-term battle for the hearts and minds, having the moral high ground is the only way you can win. You can't kill your way to a peaceful resolution, and you can't claim to want to stop the killing and torture if you are killing and torturing.
The entire episode demonstrates that Bush is an idiot, but surprisingly, it demonstrates that Chaney is a bigger idiot because he's smart enough to know the consequences of his actions. Bush is like a child.
"There are *no* reasons for classified material at all."
Really? REALLY?
So all those troops on location in hot zones that will get massacred just don't matter anymore?
God, could you be any more wrong...
I only go to buffets for the unlimited soft serve.
Without the commies to give our government an excuse to step all over our rights and disregard treaties and international law, a new threat had to be devised. Luckily for those in power the islamic extremists that hate our society so very much were able to mobilize and become a semi-credible threat.
Once we're done with the terrorists, we'll just have some other terrible threat to our safety to justify the stepping outside the bounds of the constitution. Maybe global warming will have taken off by then, we can force relocate people as the oceans rise and the FBI can torture those who resist the relocation. Who knows.
and then posted the blog as I ate lunch. Then something strange happened: a few minutes after I posted the blog, the opinion vanished
As an experienced trouble-shooter, my first question is: What the hell did you have for lunch?
Table-ized A.I.
Now, the story under all this...is the guy actually a terrorist?
Everyone's talking like he's GOT to be innocent just because they redacted a summary that might have made our gov't look like "monsters". Well we are anyway but I don't necessarialy agree with assuming someone might be innocent when 5 out of the 20 people he tried to kill are still alive and holding him down for the police to arrive.
You can get rich if you own a politician, but you have to be rich to buy one in the first place.
There's no issue here about the info being classified.
What the story is about is that the court issued an opinion, then withdrew it, and issues a redacted opinion. Probably what happened is that the the court had inadvertently included info that was under seal by the district court.
One possible explanation for the redaction is to protect the guy's family in Egypt.
Another, maybe more likely, explanation was to avoid embarrassment to the FBI.
The story was broken by blogger Howard Bashman of How Appealing, who refused to take down the unredacted version after a call from the court asking him to take it down.
http://patterico.com/2007/10/21/was-a-passage-omitted-from-a-recent-second-circuit-opinion-for-security-reasons-or-to-cover-up-material-embarrassing-to-the-fbi/
http://howappealing.law.com/102007.html#029139
Above post is insightful and informative.
And this is the shiny new example of why torture doesn't work. It certainly doesn't work in the Jack Bauer style, where you just need to apply a little more pressure to get the evil guy to give up the detonation codes. And it scares me to death that some people (Slick Willy, I'm looking at you) think that this is the right approach.
Here's what 24 doesn't tell you: You don't know who you have. If you did, you wouldn't need to interrogate them, because you'd already pretty much know everything about them. Or at the very least, you'd know the broad strokes and just want to fill in the details. However, as demonstrated during the interrogation of Khalid Sheik Mohammed, even when you know who you have and want to get some more details about past operations, torture is misguided. According to congressional hearings on the matter, it is thought that most of his confessions were nothing but attempts to get through the interrogation and protect his family. This is the second thing that 24 doesn't tell you: torture elicits probably results in more disinformation than regular interrogation techniques. Why? Because the interrogators are being told what they want to hear. Combined with the drive to show success, confirmation bias and a whole host of other human failings, this can send investigators on a far more dangerous goose chase than a detainee just telling random stories.
What really pisses me off is that the US military knew all this and this codified in their interrogation handbook: torture doesn't work, so there's no point in attempting it. But some criminally inept politicians - all without a day of military or covert experience - decided that they knew better and created new rules from scratch. The end result? Nothing but our loss of the moral high ground. Oh, and a whole bunch of information that is most likely wrong.
Congrats, US leaders: you managed to completely hose one of our main advantages in the "war" on terror. Sadly, the next crop (Hillary or Guliani, most likely) will be just as bad. Why? Because the majority of the voters buy into the 24 approach to terror. Which means we get the leaders we deserve.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
"You probably don't realize that not only does torture not work, it actually gives you incredibly bad information."
You're only half right, it works very well, so much so, that the individual being tortured will say anything. Which leads to the bad information.
"In short: Torture does not work."
In short, you're wrong. Torture, like any other tool, is effective if used in the correct situations.
None of which makes it worth lowering oneself to, by the way.
I only go to buffets for the unlimited soft serve.
Good coverage in the New York Sun, the leading New York tabloid.
It's about the FBI pulling Ministry of Truth revisionism on online court records. YRO actually is an appropriate category. Your right to know.
True. And more worrisome, the 2nd Circuit trying MinTruth tricks at the FBI's request, and evidently without due consideration of the legal issues for the redaction. The minor picadillo of a coerced confession by the FBI isn't very happy news, but it's not the original offense but the attempted coverup that really makes 'em all look bad.
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
It's just that easy to redact something when it's an electronic document so what is the news going to be like when it's all online?
Will it be like "Saddam seeking yellow cake" then the next day it's gone? No hard copy, no evidence...at least now when something is printed and distributed it's more or less permanent where the electronic copy is all to easy to edit.
How can we verify a source? How can we hold someone to what they printed when it can be instantly redacted, is there going to be a way we can tag/sign/verify a story so we know it's real and will stay around?
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
"Your example is stupid because knowing th names of troops on the ground really wouldn't help "the terrorists" at all."
L-O-C-A-T-I-O-N-S>.
No one said anything about names but you, so make sure you're not running off at the mouth the next time you call someone's post "stupid" or you'll look silly.
Like you did in that post.
I only go to buffets for the unlimited soft serve.
In Soviet America, the FBI redacts YOU!
You'll ignore my reply because you said something incredibly dumb and aren't man enough to own up?
I'll gladly ship you a 5 spot just to watch you eat your fucking words.
I only go to buffets for the unlimited soft serve.
"In short, torture basically doesn't work."
And I have explained why you are wrong. And you need to look into what "in short" means, because you're a bit off on that.
You have yet to do anything that proves this other than say so.
If all you're going to do is reap eat yourself and fail to address my post, I see no reason to waste any more time with you.
I only go to buffets for the unlimited soft serve.
This poster is correct and should be modded up. Redaction != classified. It means that the court accidentally published information that was priviledged/private/under seal. It happens pretty frequently. Every law case has a gazillion pieces of priviledged info, some of which sometimes accidentally slips out in productions, etc (and in most cases accidentally released info can not legally be used by the opposition party, though that's not necesarily directly applicable to this situation). The court is supposed to take back all of the unredacted copies and put out the correct version, which indeed they did or tried to do (though in this case, the pee is already in the pool, to quote an earlier poster). No smoking gun here, I'm afraid. [IANAL]
Have been reading about the way that Germany slipped into fascism. In a milder, slower way the USA seems to be following the same path. The USA seems to be heading towards the belief that the government must make decisions for the populace because 'the people will make irrational decisions'. You can see where that leads. Stop it now, I suggest.
Unicorn Setu. "Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines".
This guy was foolish enough to believe what law enforcement was telling him, and this is torture? I thought I was going to read about hot irons or at least waterboarding. I was sadly disappointed.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
And what conspiracy was Rich involved with, exactly? And while the pardon was questionable given the conflicts of interest, when wingnuts bring up Rich they conveniently forget to mention the fact that he had to pay a $100 million fine and not use the pardon as a defense if sued in civil court. And when using the horrible, horrible Marc Rich pardon as a defense for the Scooter Libby commutation, they also conveniently forget to mention that Rich's lawyer was one....Scooter Libby.
and a few terrorists already convicted for plotting to blow up police.
The FALN members weren't convicted of making bombs or injuring people, but of conspiracy and sedition charges and sentenced to 35 to 105 years, longer than the usual sentence for such crimes.
In any case, none of Clinton's pardons could testify against him in a criminal trial. Like oh, say, one Scooter Libby could against either Cheney or Bush II. Nothing this bad has happened since....Bush I pardoned people in the Iran Contra scandal that could have testified against him.
Now we know who the real terrorists are. Welcome to neoAmerica.
Perhaps the issue is that what happened violates the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties Man: http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/oasinstr/zoas2dec.htm
"Every person has the right to the protection of the law against abusive attacks upon his honor, his reputation, and his private and family life."
And the American Convention on Human Rights: http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/oasinstr/zoas3con.htm
"Every person has the right to be compensated in accordance with the law in the event he has been sentenced by a final judgment through a miscarriage of justice."
And thus might come under the jursidiction of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.
What the hell are you talking about?
What "20 people he tried to kill"?
The court agrees that he was held in error, because a radio that he didn't own was allegedly found in his room (though there's now two separate stories about how it's connected to him), after the person who actually did own the radio asked for it back.
Whether the details of how he was coerced to confessing were included or not, the court and the FBI both agree that he was forced to confess under extreme duress. Where are you getting this "underlying story" stuff from?
How can we hold someone to what they printed when it can be instantly redacted, is there going to be a way we can tag/sign/verify a story so we know it's real and will stay around?
Yeh, make copies, document where they came from, keep them intact and give copies of the document and your version of the chain of evidence to people you trust.
Do this for EVERYTHING you find online that you believe is valuable, whether it's news or a piece of software or a video or a comment in a newsgroup or other forum. Because there's no other way to keep digital data alive other than having many redundant copies and copying them forward.
I find myself wondering about the value of the polygraph in the first place. It measures stress reactions. The guy lived through 9/11, then was arrested, accused of being involved in the plot, and interrogated. Big surprise, he turned out to be under stress.
I've seen more "brutal" interrogation techniques (not to mention more effective) on Law and Order and I'm afraid I don't get the outrage. No physical violence was used. The suspect was provided an attorney. He received (relatively) speedy adjudication of his case. He did choose to lie, even if it was coerced.*
Is the FBI's suggestion that they will use local Egyptian authorities to go after his family a shinning moment of FBI history? Certainly not. But is it torture? No. Was it justified under the circumstances? Close call. Was it effective? Ha. Absolutely not. The suspect "confessed" to something that was not even remotely true. If it wasn't for his personal suffering, it would be comical.
Something I found interesting was that the government then prosecuted the hotel employee who initially implicated the suspect, and he actually served some home detention. Clearly, the government was not amused at being mislead in this manner.
Regarding the *, I would like to clarify that I don't think I'm holding the young man to an overly high standard. He should not have lied. Would I make up some story if waterboarded or physically tortured? Almost certainly. Would I make up some story in response to a verbal beating? Doubtful. Remember, that at the stage of the proceeding, it was "assumed" for purposes of summary judgment that all the facts alleged by the suspect were true.
The first thing that I thought when the government pulled documents, then replaced them with documents that better fit their agenda.
Not that anyone will bother reading this but the reason that they clasify stuff like that is because the CIA and FBI cant legally torture anyone. But they can and DO send people to nations that CAN legally torture people. And making it publicly obvious that they outsource their torture needs would be a huge humanrights issue. The US cant be the champions of human rights and huge human rights violators at the same time its a conflict of interests.
Templeton later admitted that he knew how the Egyptian security forces operated: "that they had a security service, that their laws are different than ours, that they are probably allowed to do things in that country where they don't advise people of their rights, they don't - yeah, probably about torture, sure."
Don't let this pawn distract you. The US perceives Egypt as rank amateurs in their torture methodology. America's secret prison rendition system sends lower-ranking captives to Egypt for torturing, while using the CIA-operated secret prisons for higher-level suspects.
From the Washington Post:
Ten years ago, we used to talk about the existence of Black Helicopters and people would laugh at these conspiracy theories. Now people wonder why we're making such a big deal about them.
Seth
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
You got that story direct from Schwartzkopfs biography right? Talk about bias. Ever read much about John Boyd? The American military strategist? Boyd gave Cheney private presentations of his Patterns of Conflict and other briefings. In Boyds biography by Robert Coram there is a quote by one of Boyds acolytes that states Cheney was one of the most knowledgeable civilians outside military circles when it came to warfare. I've also read 'kopfs biography. He was talking about Cheneys office giving ideas to throw about in the mix, particularly ideas that were unconventional to mix with conventional military minds that were working on the plans. If anything it was a divergent thinking process, rather than convergent. It might have been shut down because it was stupid, but it was part of a process of thinking. Schwartzkopf was taking the planning out of context. The story doesn't show Cheney is dumb, but that Schwartzkopf doesn't understand the different between a divergent and convergent thinking process. I also find it laughable that'd you quote Schwartzkopf as a critic of Cheney. Schwartzkopf also wanted to get rid the brilliant "hail mary" plan in desert storm, that Cheney's office devised. Schwartzkopf wanted to just attack kuwait head on which would have meant a bloodbath for American troops. Sane indeed.
in fusion research about that material that was originated in and declassified by the Soviet Union, sent with some of their scientists to the USA to give a talk to some of our scientists, and then promptly declared classified here and a blanket literally placed over the roll-away chalkboard.
In the future, anything published online after the government releases it should be promptly uploaded to file sharing sites and p2p/torrent networks to make sure it is preserved in the open. It is NOT the job of the people to retcon info when the government makes mistakes, but the government's job to double and triple check what they clear for public consumption before it goes public from them.
I blame the usual functionary bureaucrats for closing yet another barn door after the horses have already entered themselves in the Kentucky Derby.
If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
You haven't done shit, you narcissistic peckerwood. Reading this exchange between you just shows to what extent intellectual laziness prevents people from using research to support their inane claims on the Intertubes. Looking through your comment history it's clearly a persistent condition.
From one of the more venerable documents on the WWW: Paragraphs
Unlike documents in most word processors, carriage returns and white space in HTML files aren't significant. I wasn't thrilled when I saw that, either. If you really want the extra space you can always use " ".
the NPG electrode was replaced with carbon blac
Quest for truth, or barring that a nice steaming pile of confession!
What is this really doing for the American people. Lose of respect for those looking to advance their careers by "whatever mean", lose respect for the system, making us all safer from people who rent a hotel room after a pilot checks out. As a slightly moral people I would like to think we'd want the truth, not a "confess or your baby sister gets raped" document.
Like it or not this very well might be what America stands for and what the people support for whatever measure of temporary safety it might make them feel they have.
To me this is nonsense and crap. The judge should have not let that item slip from public view. Someone needs to be exposed, retrained, or fired. We don't need cheap gimmicks like they used in this case. I like to think we are both smarter and more inventive than that.
-- Prepared at the direction of, or to be sent to Legal Counsel, in anticipation of litigation. Attorney Client Pri
By classifying this data, the FBI helped to ensure that it was posted prominently on Slashdot for thousands of people to read.
I bet if they had just left the original version posted, not many people would have even noticed it.
It's the Ministry of Truth at work. Keep asking and you'll be reamed in the ass.
Rudd-O - http://rudd-o.com/
"Tomorrow Belongs to Me"
Seriously, do you know what the Egyptian security forces are capable of? Do you have living relatives?
If they threatened to electrocute my Mom, I'd be singing like a bird, and so would you.
Admittedly, the ICRC defines the infliction of psychological pain as being "ill-treatement", of which torture is only one flavor. So it's only prohibited by international law...
"Methods of ill treatment may be both physical and/or psychological in nature and both methods may have physical and psychological effects."
http://www.icrc.org/web/eng/siteeng0.nsf/html/69MJXC
For some reason, this information is classified.
... not anymore.
Apparently
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Here's a novel idea: Don't want to be nuked? Don't attack us.
That "war crime" probably saved Japan from sixty years of Soviet occupation.
I don't see anything particularly damning in this redacted section. Sending 'uncooperative' suspects to countries with more conventional means of interrogation is really old news. We've got rendering, and an either overtight or improperly sized blood pressure cuff. That's it... oh yeah, and we've got a bunch of whining from a suspect. That's the part the government doesn't want you to see, because of the propaganda value to its enemies.
Now, feel free to redact me down to troll for not jumping on the administration-bashing bandwagon. I really was hoping to find evidence of waterboarding or shoving bamboo skewers under fingernails (you can never be too educated, might need that knowledge one day), but I didn't learn a damn thing. Where are the secret torture techniques that the government doesn't want me to know about?
Yes, you can have perfect moral clarity and know there is a ticking time bomb when you're part of a TV audience that saw the bad guy setting the bomb, but in reality you don't get to see the bomb--people are being tortured to see if there is a bomb, to see if this guy knows a guy who knows if there's a bomb, and so on...reality lacks the perfect god-like clarity that the neocons think they have.
When you're dealing with someone who thinks that they have this moral clarity that only exists in fictional scenarios, you're dealing with someone very stupid, very arrogant, with a power fetish, or any combination of the three. Opposition to torture is grounded not just in the idea that torture is wrong, but in the recognition that we're fallible, our knowledge is limited, and basically that people can't be trusted with that level of power. This grounding humility is what is lacking in the neocons. They may be humble in other ways, praying to God and so forth, but they believe so strongly in their own vision that they feel that normal morality doesn't apply.
This isn't strictly confined to the neocons--some leftists have tortured for the Marxist/Stalinist/whatever cause, no doubt, but they are long gone. The neocons may not have a monopoly on hubris, but they're the problem we're dealing with today.
Are you implying that torture is immoral? If it's immoral, then I'll stand right beside you saying that the Islamicists are wrong for torturing people. If you think torture is a legitimate information-gathering technique, I'm not sure why the media would give it much attention. Could you clarify your position on this? I happen to think torture is immoral, but I've had my patriotism questioned for saying it.
It's well-established that torture results in more disinformation than actionable intelligence, because people will say anything at all with a drill-bit in their kneecap or electrodes on their testicles. So it really comes down to the moral question. When the Egyptions or N. Koreans torture a prisoner (or detainee)-- is that immoral? I really need an answer on this.
i would vote -10 bumbling idiots but i dont have any moderation points
_ In Egypt Networks: Network Solutions with a Twist
What all this really says to me, is that thousands of other cases are being hidden that we do not get to hear about. Iraq prisons have held over hundred thousand people under americans' new torture regime. Their stories are hardly heard in the western media. 5 million people are now homeless because they have run and left the country. Over 1 million people are dead. 10 million wounded. If one in every 20 americans were dead and 1/5 ran the country and half had been wounded, USA would be in the same situation. The atrocity done in Iraq is on par with Hitler's deeds in it's scale. -- What is it that USA wants so hard that we can't leave Iraq alone?
I think the main problem is that we seem to entertain the notion that war can be 'gentlemanly'
It can't. The entire point is to cause as much pain and suffering to the other side, until they can take no more and bend to your will.
Anything other than that is window-dressing. If you're not prepared to die for the war, then you shouldn't have turned up. The idea of joining a national army ujp front and happily going off to kill whoever your leader dislikes that week is bizarre beyond words.
Getting your people captured and then acting indignant when they're beheaded, or protesting footage of 'enemy' snipers is just hypocritical beyond words. Once you go to war, you've made a decision you can't take back and anything goes.
I see some seriously career-limiting decisions in Judge Rakoff's future as well. This all only came out because the Judge objected to the FBI lying openly to the court.
While I see a fruitful future for the FBI agent, who has had his loyalty to the Agency proven under fire.
And what's worse is that, nowadays, no one will really think that's the wrong way round.....
The decision must still have been in the cache; why not post it somewhere else?
Great work, cheers!
WWII is probably one of the few wars where there really was an unequivocal "right" vs "wrong", and it was a war that the allies had to win at any cost. Furthermore, the victors did handle the aftermath of the war in a way that transformed the losing nations into prosperous and free societies.
The major moral problem with WWII is that it has served as an excuse and model for subsequent wars, wars that were nowhere near as clearcut.
"Who ... decided that sentences on the Internet shall no longer be formatted with two spaces after a period?!"
The Modern Languages Association (MLA) changed its recommendation recently (in the 6th edition, I think, of the Guide to Writers of Research Papers). Before that, it had recommended two spaces, a style item I've used for decades.
I used to hate that browsers all seemed to render sentences with only one space after a period ("full stop" in many parts of the world), but now it seems that they were ahead of the curve, at least in terms of US style. The New York Public Library Writer's Guide to Style and Usage also says to use one space. I don't know what Chicago, or the APA, or other style manuals say.
Hi. Former intel analyst here. Using classification to cover up a crime or an embarrassment is illegal. It might be possible that there is legitimately classified information in the confession. i thought coerced confessions were inadmissible.
Utilizing the synergization of benchmark e-solutions to pre-workaround action items!
And this is the shiny new example of why torture does work.
Most witches confessed, before they got burned.
That is usually the purpose of torture, not getting the truth
"I parsed this as:
So all those troops in hot zones just don't matter anymore?"
Which was wrong, because your reading skills suck.
"This implies something about the IDENTITY of those troops."
Oh please, it does nothing of the kind, you just misread something and aren't man enough to admit it, so you lay blame somewhere else.
There's not a single thing in there that would lead anyone with any kind of reading ability to your conclusion. You fucked up and are too pathetic to own up. Sad.
"Considering you wildly misinterpreted the OP"
Considering YOUR response to e, you can fuck off with your claim of misinterpretation Mr. Pot.
"You're also wrong. Should troop location details be kept secret FOREVER? "
How does that make me wrong? I NEVER claimed that.
You're a fucking idiot with TERRIBLE reading comprehension. You've misread a very easily understood post, and blamed your shitty reading comprehension on me.
I've got an idea, HOW ABOUT YOU ACTUALLY READ MY POST AND RESPOND TO WHAT I WROTE as interpreting it seems to be far to difficult for you to do correctly.
I only go to buffets for the unlimited soft serve.
"Not very bright are we?"
Don't be so hard on yourself and your family, they probably exceed your expectations.
"When you're a peacekeeper, you want people to know where you are."
Unless you're transporting valuable cargo like, I dunno, medicine or food or something. Of course, there are the missions where they break up opposition forces as well as enforcing ceasefires.
See, three examples right there, yet you're so stupid and arrogant you think that all peacekeeping missions fall into the categories you listed.
Look up "Bosnia", and then STFU and stop posting AC after I show you you're wrong. We all know it's you.
I only go to buffets for the unlimited soft serve.
What Democrat has offered to repeal USA PATRIOT?
1. US Senator John Tester. He won election as a Democrat in Montana, with a platform built largely from anti-federal-government planks. He's been anti-patriot act all along.
2. US Rep and (sorta) presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich. He's running for president against the patriot act.
There are probably others; these are the two I can think of right off the top of my head. Note also the absence of any D-prez frontrunners from this list... I bet Hillary can't wait to get her hands on the levers of power that work the police state. And, truth be told, if she promises to stick an electric cattle prod up Dick Cheney's ass and show it on national television, she would win my vote in a heartbeat.
Humpty Dumpty was pushed.
It has happened before. I saw the famous Bush coffin sex pictures, mentioned below, but they seem to have been done away with rather efficiently. http://www.mail-archive.com/ctrl@listserv.aol.com/msg95880.html
The pictures weren't that special, but with such resolution as to be clear they were not forgeries. And you can't find them anymore on the internet.
There's some truth to this story about FBI and NSA being ordered to get them.
I am posting this as AC for obvious reasons. I made it easy for you to find the differences between the two pdf's. Btw, it seems they did a find and replace for the word reverse and they replaced it with vacate in the edited document. Here is the edited out portion of the document:
Higazy alleges that during the polygraph, Templeton told him that he should cooperate, and explained that if Higazy did not cooperate, the FBI would make his brother "live in scrutiny" and would "make sure that Egyptian security gives [his] family hell." Templeton later admitted that he knew how the Egyptian security forces operated: "that they had a security service, that their laws are different than ours, that they are probably allowed to do things in that country where they don't advise people of their rights, they don't - yeah, probably about torture, sure." Higazy later said, "I knew that I couldn't prove my innocence, and I knew that my family was in danger." He explained that "[t]he only thing that went through my head was oh, my God, I am screwed and my family's in danger. If I say this device is mine, I'm screwed and my family is going to be safe. If I say this device is not mine, I'm screwed and my family's in danger. And Agent Templeton made it quite clear that cooperate had to mean saying something else other than this device is not mine."
Higazy explained why he feared for his family:
And Higazy added: