Legal experts slam torture policy process

[struggle4progress]

<snip>
"What they have done is preposterous," said Eugene R. Fidell, an expert on military law and president of the National Institute of Military Justice, a Washington think tank. "Calling the memo irrelevant is a pretty lame way of getting out of this. But the reality is that the thinking here was the foundation stone of their policy.

"I can't remember a more unanimous chorus of lawyers from every part of the political spectrum agreeing on an issue."
<snip>

"Realistically, those parts of the memos are not novel, but other parts are shockingly novel," (Allen Weiner) added. "The constitutional analysis on the president's power was the most shocking thing. These are totally new powers. These are very bald-faced and categorical assertions. Federal criminal laws become inapplicable."
<snip>

"The question of the president's constitutional authority goes back to the early days of the republic," said (Rear Adm. John D. Hutson). "That is a perfectly legitimate subject to debate. But one of the offensive aspects of this to me is that they used that venerable and honorable issue, that people care greatly about, for a short-term, mean-spirited, ill-advised advantage."
<snip>

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/06/24/MNG2A7B8G91.DTL

[struggle4progress]

1. House Panel to Block Torture Justification

House Committee Votes to Block Justice Department From Justifying Torture

The Associated Press

WASHINGTON June 23, 2004 — A House committee Wednesday voted to bar the Justice Department from issuing legal justifications for the U.S. use of torture as Congress continued to react to government memos that seemed to permit the practice.

And the Senate defeated 50-46 a measure that would have declared all U.S. officials bound by anti-torture laws and required Pentagon reports on interrogations techniques, the number of detainees denied POW status, Red Cross findings on U.S. military prisons and a schedule for trying terror suspects held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

"This was a shot across the bow," Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Edward Kennedy, a sponsor, said after it failed. "The votes tonight show patience is wearing thin with this White House's refusal to level with the American people."

Republican members of the Senate said the legislation was nothing more than a partisan move to embarrass President Bush.
<snip>

http://abcnews.go.com/wire/Politics/ap20040623_2656.html

[Edmond Dantes]

3. David Rivkin's comments are almost humorous...

In his former capacity as General Counsel for the Dept. of Energy (or was it Commerce?), he deliberately contrived disputes with EPA over proper interpretation of the Clean Air Act Amendments. This would force the issue to OLC for resolution favorable to big oil. It was a way of wresting control away from EPA which had authority to promulgate new clean air regulations.

Rivkin has participated in the contrived OLC legal memoranda-opinions scam. His hands aren't clean

[struggle4progress]

4. Yeah. Ha ha. I become less of a pacifist every day. eom

[goforit]

2. It's funny under the rule of tyrrany..........anything goes.

Look at our SUPREME examplar..........

The Supreme COURT CAVES in to a TYRRANNY

All rights are erased and irradicated!!!!


Being a wet-back gone south, ain't so bad an idea.