Great article on torture trial at Huffington Post, by DU's own Lala RawRaw:
We just might learn some truth today
Every thing secret degenerates, even the administration of justice; nothing is safe that does not show how it can bear discussion and publicity.
-Lord Acton
Huffington Post --
The public demands accountability, as it should, and transparency, as it should, but forgets to participate in making either of those things possible.
For several years now, the ACLU has been fighting to have released the documents, photographs and videos, of detainee abuse under our misguided "noble cause."
Today, August 30 - the court will allow the "People" to hear the government's case on why the rape of children, for example - under Project Copper Green -is conducive to winning the war on terror. Perhaps the argument will not be made in those explicit, honest terms, but the substance of the crimes discussed and our need to know about them will be evident even if buried under mounds of legal verbiage.
... The DOD has re-interpreted the law and filed appeal after appeal in order to keep us from knowing even the "why." They have argued that we, the "People", should not know "why" the photographs and videos must be classified and permanently sealed - cherry picking the FOIA statutes and conveniently sewing them into an unrecognizable declaration, hand delivered by the Joint Chiefs of Staff himself. Consider the implications of a government using whistleblower status in order to cover up not only its crimes, but even the reasons for the cover up.
. . .There is no Congress here, in the open court, or a series of votes that must be passed for the public to attend and essentially bare witness. This, in essence, is the collective citizen turning to the one bastion of accountability left (perhaps): the courts. That is, if the collective citizen attends.
Imagine how the court might rule if the "People" stood outside, a vigil of lights, signs, pleas and tears in the very city, not far from the very place, where this entire nightmare began...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/larisa-alexandrovna/we-just-might-learn-some-_b_6405.html
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