Senator Feingold Hits Obama Administration Over Extraordinary Rendition Decision

[Paulaguyon]

From Greg Sargent's new blog:

Senator Russ Feingold is sharply criticizing the Obama administration over its controversial decision to maintain the Bush administration's position in a closely watched lawsuit involving alleged victims of extraordinary rendition, a decision that generated a storm of criticism yesterday.

"I am troubled by reports that the Obama administration has decided to invoke the state secrets privilege in a case brought by five men who claim to have been the victims of extraordinary rendition," Feingold said in a statement sent to me by his office, in a rare instance of criticism directed at Obama by a Senator in his own party.

The case has been closely watched as an early signal of how Obama would handle one of the Bush administration's most controversial "war on terror" legal weapons-- specifically, whether the Obama administration would uphold the Bush administration's claims of state secret privileges, citing national security, to prevent courts from ruling on such matters. Feingold's statement suggests he intends to maintain a controversial posture towards the White House on the issue.

Feingold's office also confirmed that he is seeking a secret briefing on the case from the Obama administration -- something that could put the administration on the spot and potentially ratchet up the confrontation.

Read more: http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/torture/exclusive-senator-feingold-hits-obama-administration-over-extraordinary-rendition-decision/

[truebrit71]

1. Thank you Senator Feingold....this is NOT change we can believe in..

...

[Thrill]

4. Are we going to hear this shit every time something is done people don't agree with?

Its getting old already. "This is not the change we can believe in" Jeesh

[truebrit71]

6. So, you support torture then? 'Cos that ain't change I can believe in...

...

[Occam Bandage]

8. And tired repitition of cliched complaints isn't change I can believe in either.

I agree the current position seems disheartening, especially since there are still many open questions about how Obama is going to handle these cases. We don't know what he's going to do, and so it's hard to weight any signal he sends without knowing what the counterbalance is going to be.

But really, if I have to hear four years of "that's not change we can believe in," I'm gonna start programming a filter to block that phrase. It was lame the third time (out of, say, fifty) Gramps said it in his speech way back when Obama clinched the Democratic nomination in Minneapolis; it hasn't gotten any cleverer or pithier in the seven months since.

[salguine]

11. When it's about our country turning into a place that operates

secret prisons where people are taken to be tortured, then yeah, you're gonna hear it. If that's irksome to you, then too goddamn bad.

[Occam Bandage]

13. And if that were what this topic were about, that post would be meaningful.

But since extraordinary renditions have been banned, your self-righteous bluster is out of place. The topic at hand is how we can balance the need to expose the particular practices of the previous administration with the need to protect security protocols. What we can glean from this and similar cases is that Obama does not believe that the appropriate solution is to allow courts to disclose classified information at their will. Unfortunately, we don't really know what his solution is going to be, and that is of course distressing, as there is that niggling hunch that perhaps he's not going to do anything at all. Still, it is far too early to assume that hunch is in fact the full reality.

[LakeSamish706]

2. I am so happy that Senator Feingold is entering this controversy....

Figured someone should state their position on this..... I am hoping that President Obama will pay attention to this, and perhaps nudge Mr. Holder as well.

[Danger Mouse]

3. Welcome back.

[uponit7771]

5. "Extraordinary" rendition or just rendition? My understanding was Extraordinary rendition...

...is rendition was the bad one and rendition is the act of carrying folk away to be tortured.

[Paulaguyon]

12. Extraordinary

They were sent to Egypt and Syria. Mohammed claims to have had his penis sliced while in custody.

Nothing ordinary about that.

[Occam Bandage]

7. Maybe it's the right decision, and maybe it's the wrong one. We can't know. Which is why

I think there needs to be a separate, secure, non-public review process consisting of trustworthy pro-civil-rights legal experts, to look over all of these cases, and to determine which cases can be tried openly and which cannot, presenting their findings to both the President and Congress in closed-doors meetings.

I agree that courts should not be able to overturn security privileges whenever they feel like it; that isn't a good precedent to set. At the same time, the solution isn't to just say that anything stamped "secret" is legally nonexistent.

[LakeSamish706]

9. You sold me on that... And I hope they are reading this post.... I guess they would just...

need to figure out how to appoint a group like that without getting any partisanship in it.

[liberalsince1968]

10. GOOD. Feingold isn't the only one who's troubled. Obama is no better than Bush if he doesn't

reverse ALL of Bush's torture policies.

[zulchzulu]

14. AG Holder, in for less than a couple weeks, is reviewing the cases and will investigate

I'm glad Russ is putting on the pressure, but I think it's a tad short-sighted to think that Obama, through the AG Holder, is against investigating the cases.

I love Russ but I know he can be a bit of a grandstander at times. Let's see what Holder's investigations lead to in the next couple of weeks.

[chill_wind]

15. There is no "waiting for Holder" on this one. n/t

[chill_wind]

16. This is a dupe of earlier thread. More facts here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x5024292


edit to add :hi: Welcome to DU.