An AG Who Believes in the Law? - Headlines - 1/16/09

[Caro]

Politics and Media Headlines 1/16/09

Outgoing CIA director defends detainee interrogation program (McClatchy)
LANGLEY, Va. — Outgoing CIA Director Michael Hayden vigorously defended on Thursday the agency's use of secret prisons and coercive interrogation methods on suspected al Qaida terrorists, saying they helped avert new terrorist attacks and were done "out of duty, not out of enthusiasm."

See? It’s all okay. It was only out of duty. They were just following orders.

Forgive and Forget? (by Paul Krugman)
(W)e’re told that we don’t have to dwell on past abuses, because we won’t repeat them… In fact, we’ve already seen this movie. During the Reagan years, the Iran-contra conspirators violated the Constitution in the name of national security. But the first President Bush pardoned the major malefactors, and when the White House finally changed hands the political and media establishment gave Bill Clinton the same advice it’s giving Mr. Obama: let sleeping scandals lie. Sure enough, the second Bush administration picked up right where the Iran-contra conspirators left off — which isn’t too surprising when you bear in mind that Mr. Bush actually hired some of those conspirators…

(W)hile it’s probably in his short-term political interests to forgive and forget, next week (Mr. Obama is) going to swear to “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.” That’s not a conditional oath to be honored only when it’s convenient. And to protect and defend the Constitution, a president must do more than obey the Constitution himself; he must hold those who violate the Constitution accountable. So Mr. Obama should reconsider his apparent decision to let the previous administration get away with crime. Consequences aside, that’s not a decision he has the right to make.
Conservative Charles Krauthammer, as if on cue: “The very continuation by Democrats of Bush's policies will be grudging, if silent, acknowledgement of how much he got right.”—Caro

Holder Agrees Waterboarding Is Torture (American Constitution Society)
Attorney General-designate Eric Holder told the Senate Judiciary Committee during his confirmation hearing that waterboarding is torture. As noted by The New York Times, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), chairman of the committee, has been a longtime critic of the Bush administration’s approval of the torture technique used on detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan. Leahy didn’t waste time in probing Holder on his thoughts on the matter. Holder said that waterboarding has been defined as torture for centuries and that he agrees that, “Waterboarding is torture.”
Straight talk. Amazing.—Caro

Cornyn’s Absurd Hypothetical For Holder: What If Waterboarding Were Your Only Interrogation Option? (Think Progress)
During his confirmation hearing today, Attorey General nominee Eric Holder unequivocally rejected torture. “No one is above the law,” Holder said repeatedly during the hearing. Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) could not fathom that an Attorney General would reject a practice that both is unlawful and endangers Americans. He tried to get Holder to back off his anti-torture stance by presenting an absurd “ticking time bomb” hypothetical in which thousands of American lives are at stake… A few minutes later, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) identified where Cornyn most likely thought up his torture-is-the-only-option scenario: “I understand Senator Cornyn’s questions. They are questions that anyone who watches Jack Bauer on ‘24′ would ask.”
Fortunately, Holder wouldn’t take Cornyn’s bait. He refused to accept the premise or to answer the question. Perhaps, just perhaps, sanity may begin to prevail on the issue of torture.—Caro

FISA court expected to rule that President can wiretap without a court order. (Think Progress)
The New York Times reports that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court is expected to issue a major ruling validating “the power of the president and Congress to wiretap international phone calls and intercept e-mail messages without a court order,” even when U.S. residents’ personal communications are involved… Separately, in his confirmation hearing today, Attorney General nominee Eric Holder said the President cannot violate FISA: “FEINGOLD: Is there anything in the FISA statute that makes you believe that the president has the ability under some other inherent power to disregard the FISA statute? HOLDER: No, I do not see that in the FISA statute.”
Even more chance that sanity is back. Click through to watch the video.—Caro

(Thursday’s) FISA ruling: a case study in 8 years of lying and ignorance (by Glenn Greenwald at Unclaimed Territory, Salon)
(Thursday), The New York Times' Eric Lichtblau (one of the NYT reporters who originally broke the NSA (wiretapping) story yet often mindlessly recites false Bush claims even on this issue) wrote a story which reported that the FISA Court of Review had issued a decision "validating the power of the president and Congress to wiretap international phone calls and intercept e-mail messages without a specific court order." From start to finish, Lichtblau's description of the ruling was muddled and contradictory, even nonsensical in some places… The ruling had nothing whatsoever to do with the central question at the heart of the NSA controversy: namely, whether Bush committed felonies by ordering warrantless eavesdropping in the face of a Congressional statute that explicitly made such eavesdropping a felony.

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Carolyn Kay
MakeThemAccountable.com