Leon Panetta Confirmation Hearing. He's not taking Cheney's BS

[Thrill]

"I was disappointed by those comments, because the implication is that somehow this country is more vulnerable to attack because the president of the United States wants to abide by the law and the Constitution. I think we’re a stronger nation when we abide by the law and the Constitution,"

Its on CSPAN

http://cspan.org/

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

1. Glad to hear someone calling Dick out on the bull crap he's spewing.

[EFerrari]

2. Except he still argued that rendition is a good tool.

Not extrordinary rendition, just kidnapping.

You can't argue the rule of law when you're arguing against the rule of law. :(

[Thrill]

3. There is nothing wrong with Rendition

[EFerrari]

4. Rendition is kidnapping in a foreign country. You bet there's something wrong with it.

Not only that, it opens the door on all kinds of human rights abuses.

[glowing]

6. Say, George Bush is hiding out in Texas having the good life and

a the Iraqi people thinks that he needs to stand trial for war crimes. They come into the USA and rendition him to a international court where he faces trial and goes to the hague. Is that rendition wrong?

[EFerrari]

8. Maybe just a good tool?

I thought we were trying to crawl back toward the rule of law. :)

[struggle4progress]

9. "Rendition" is the process of delivering fugitives to foreign governments, usually under

reciprocity treaties: if (say) UK courts want someone in the US, they request our cooperation, and we have legal procedures for determining whether and how to honor the request

"Extraordinary rendition" is called "extraordinary" because it is performed outside these "ordinary" legal channels

It is possible for agents of one country to detain a suspect in another country, in order to bring him to justice: this may not always be "extraordinary rendition" or even "kidnapping"

[EFerrari]

10. Not quite. Center for Constitutional Studies Mike Ratner on Amy Goodman this morning:

http://www.democracynow.org/2009/2/5/despite_celebrated_orders_closing_gitmo_and

It is kidnapping, whether we have an extra legal with another government to do it or not.

[struggle4progress]

12. Extraordinary Rendition and the State Secrets Privilege: A Self-inflicted Wound?

<t William Weaver, Political Science Department, University of Texas El Paso>

"Extraordinary rendition" is an oxymoron. It is a blended term that implies there is a legal basis for kidnapping people and delivering them to third party country thumbscrew and shocks-to-the-gonads artists. Plain old rendition, of course, is the delivery of people to justice in foreign jurisdictions under the terms of treaties and in accordance with other legal constraints. The "extraordinary" part of "extraordinary rendition," on the other hand, is simply a codeword for extrajudicial kidnappings that can only be taken in the pitch black world where law cannot go. These "snatches" have mounted into the hundreds over the last six years, but there has never been any judicial or statutory authorization for this activity.

The only United States Supreme Court pronouncement on the question of forcible removal of persons to foreign jurisdictions outside of treaty and on presidential authority alone came in Valentine v. United States. In a unanimous opinion, Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes found that, "he power to provide for extradition . . . is not confided to the Executive in the absence of treaty or legislative provision." In Valentine, two United States citizens were accused of crimes in France and were arrested awaiting extradition by U.S. authorities. The crimes allegedly committed were extraditable offenses under a bi-lateral treaty between the United States and France, but the arrestees filed a habeas corpus action, "upon the ground that because the treaty excepted citizens of the United States, the President had no constitutional authority to surrender the respondents to the French Republic." The Court made no indication that non-U.S. citizens not subject to extradition by treaty would be accorded any less protection, and indeed stated that, "It necessarily follows that as the legal authority does not exist save as it is given by act of Congress or by the terms of a treaty, it is not enough that statute or treaty does not deny the power to surrender. It must be found that statute or treaty confers the power." Congress has never authorized extraordinary rendition, and the weight of international law clearly forges against the practice

For most of our legal history, the presidential claim to unilateral power to undertake renditions outside of law was unthinkable. Abraham Lincoln ordered the first "extraordinary rendition" and it almost cost him the 1864 election. Even in that case, a corrupt Spanish official and slave trader was given to the Spanish courts in Cuba and not delivered for torture. It would be over 125 years before another president claimed such power ...

http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/forumy/2007/10/extraordinary-rendition-and-state.php

[struggle4progress]

13. Lascelles v. Georgia, 148 U.S. 537 (1893)

... In September, 1891, the Governor of the State of Georgia made a requisition on the Governor of the State of New York for the arrest and surrender of the plaintiff in error to designated officials of the former state, naming him, as he was named in the indictment, Walter S. Beresford. In the requisition as well as in the warrant for his arrest, the offenses for which his rendition was demanded were stated and designated as charged in the indictment ...

http://supreme.justia.com/us/148/537/case.html

[struggle4progress]

14. A Treatise on Extradition and Interstate Rendition (John Bassett Moore 1891)

http://books.google.com/books?id=fzk-AAAAIAAJ&dq=rendition+extradition&printsec=frontcover&source=bl&ots=o8jh9zWgsr&sig=gcXgm1xVEKnm74XGbJYIWqYNRUQ&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=5&ct=result

See p 819. Moore apparently prefers "rendition" for what we currently call interstate extradition and to reserve "extradition" for the international case, but the analogy between the two is clear

[struggle4progress]

15. OK, convenient linguistic shorthand appears to have unsettled the usage:

Here's a CRS report:

Renditions: Constraints Imposed by Laws on Torture
Updated October 12, 2007 ...

Persons suspected of criminal or terrorist activity may be transferred from one
State (i.e., country) to another for arrest, detention, and/or interrogation. Commonly,
this is done through extradition, by which one State surrenders a person within its
jurisdiction to a requesting State via a formal legal process, typically established by
treaty. Far less often, such transfers are effectuated through a process known as
“extraordinary rendition” or “irregular rendition.” These terms have often been used
to refer to the extrajudicial transfer of a person from one State to another. In this
report, “rendition” refers to extraordinary or irregular renditions unless otherwise
specified ...

Persons suspected of terrorist or criminal activity may be transferred from one
State (i.e., country) to another to answer charges against them.1 The surrender of a
fugitive from one State to another is generally referred to as rendition.2 A distinct
form of rendition is extradition, by which one State surrenders a person within its
territorial jurisdiction to a requesting State via a formal legal process, typically
established by treaty between the countries.3 However, renditions may be effectuated
in the absence of extradition treaties, as well.4 The terms “irregular rendition” and
“extraordinary rendition” have been used to refer to the extrajudicial transfer of a
person from one State to another, generally for the purpose of arrest, detention,
and/or interrogation by the receiving State (for purposes of this report, the term
“rendition” will be used to describe irregular renditions, and not extraditions, unless
otherwise specified). Unlike in extradition cases, persons subject to this type of
rendition typically have no access to the judicial system ...

<pdf link:> fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL32890.pdf

According to this view, "rendition" is the more general term; "extradition" is rendition by legal process; otherwise, rendition is “extraordinary” or "irregular" -- but, despite making the distinction, the report generally writes "rendition" for “extraordinary rendition”

[struggle4progress]

17. Unfortunately, SCOTUS seems to have approved some foreign kidnapping:

... extraterritorially kidnapping someone to bring them back to the United States for trial .... was approved in 1992 by a 6-3 Supreme Court (Rehnquist opinion, Stevens, O'Connor and Kennedy in the dissent) in the case of United States v. Alvarez Machain, holding that an extradition treaty with another country, in that case Mexico, does not bar the United States from kidnapping a citizen of that country and putting him on trial in Federal court ...

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2009/2/3/224911/2562

I would agree with the speakers on the Democracy Now! segment you linked, that one is on a dangerous and slippery slope once one moves outside the sphere established by treaties and judicial process

[EFerrari]

19. Once you have agents of the state engaged in the process of kidnapping

a human being, the covert nature of the act opens it up to abuse. :shrug:

[struggle4progress]

20. On that, we agree

aside: I am gonna be sooo confused with all these new usernames

[EFerrari]

21. Thanks for running this info down for me / us.

:hi:

[EFerrari]

5. I didn't mean to kill your thread, Brent.

I like Leon Panetta and at bottom, I don't think the issue I raised was his decision.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

7. Panetta is so fucking tough

He'll cream Cheney. And they all know it.

He just put Cheney's cracks away. Done. Finis. Over and out.

[Hope And Change]

11. K & R!

[truebrit71]

16. Except he said don't prosecute the torturers that "followed orders"...

...this is NOT what I wanted to hear...

[Ilsa]

18. I think he is a great choice for this job. Brilliant and tough as nails.

A very good manager and knows the ins and outs of the WH.

Some freeper types are pissed about Panetta getting some speaking fees from troubled banks last year. I guess if the tarp $ doesn't get stolen by a rethug, they aren't happy.

[Royal Sloan 09]

22. Tom Hartman, says, "Dick Cheney is a Terrorist !" eom