AP: Bill Would Ease CIA Interrogation Limits

[Eugene]

Bill Would Ease CIA Interrogation Limits
By ANNE PLUMMER FLAHERTY, Associated Press Writer
10:08 AM PDT, September 9, 2006

WASHINGTON -- To many of President Bush's allies, it is time to free intelligence
officials from "legislative purgatory" and get the CIA back in the business
of effective interrogations of suspected terrorists.

That chance could come this week if the Senates takes up a White House proposal
limiting the punishable offenses that CIA interrogators may face when questioning
"high-value" terrorist suspects. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn.,
is expected to begin debate on the bill as early as Tuesday.

Through omissions and legal definitions, the proposal could authorize harsh
techniques that critics contend potentially violate the Geneva Conventions,
which govern the treatment of war prisoners. These methods include hypothermia,
stress positions and "waterboarding," a practice of simulated drowning.

-snip-

The proposal would apply back to 2001 the Bush administration's standards
for treatment of detainees. That would shield CIA personnel from liability
under a 1996 law intended to uphold the Geneva Conventions, since the fight
against terrorism began and harsher interrogation methods were approved.

-snip-

Full article: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/politics/wire/sns-ap-detainee-interrogations,1,3170329.story

[AlamoDemoc]

1. "bill would ease"....I guess the CIA will now use less water...n/t

[NVMojo]

2. does this mean after Bush is out & is finally investigated, they get to

really do their jobs on him and the assholes he runs with?

[Donnachaidh]

3. no -- it gives Bush and his minions a get out of jail free card

retoactively covering the torturers and the ones who ordered it.

[rodeodance]

4. retro active immunity from procecution.

[struggle4progress]

5. CIA still hiding 'ghost' captives

Stephen Grey and Sarah Baxter

... Bush has offered no guarantees that the CIA will stop using what amounts to torture against new Al-Qaeda suspects. He told yesterday’s Wall Street Journal that measures to put his antiterror policies on firmer legal and political ground would benefit future presidents ...

Reprieve believes many detainees are being held in a form of joint custody, where countries such as Afghanistan provide jail facilities and guards and the CIA supplies the interrogators. It says there are several hundred detainees still at Bagram airbase in Afghanistan, none of whom has been named by the Pentagon ...

Aafia Siddiqui, 34, a Pakistani educated at the University of Houston, disappeared in Karachi in 2003. American officials said she was under interrogation but, according to Reprieve, her family knows nothing of her fate.

Prisoners are thought to have been held in eastern Europe, north Africa and Thailand. A retired Jordanian general said last week that tens of American prisoners had arrived in Amman in unmarked jets and been questioned by Jordanian and American agents at the headquarters of the Mukhabarat, the Jordanian intelligence service.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-2350485,00.html

[teryang]

6. The Army is completely opposed to this interpretation

It is questionable really whether a statute can trump international law. In my opinion it doesn't. The Geneva protections apply to detainees as well as POWs. Inhumane treatment isn't authorized because of differing status. However, detainees who commit acts of war are criminals who can be tried and punished.

It's interesting that the white house position is totally contradicted by the Army legal position an that these contradictory positions were announced at the same time.

[tbyg52]

7. I've said it before and I'll say it again, and again

They can get people off the hook in the future (unless we the people stop them), but they *cannot* Constitutionally get them off retroactively:

No bill of attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.
Article I, Section 9, United States Constitution

http://www.lectlaw.com/def/e086.htm