…But Verify
By Mitch Berg
Most Americans approved of giving government a lot of extra power after the onset of the crisis. We gave the power on the assumption that the government would operate with integrity. Being composed of humans with imperfections (and, being careerists and politicians, perhaps more imperfections than most), some of them took more than they were supposed to.
The crisis – well, that’s the trick, of course: the Red Scare, the Kennedy Assassinations (both), Watergate, the Stockton Massacre, the Crack Epidemic…
…oh, yeah – and 9/11. The responses, in the wrong hands, led to untrammelled power in the hands of J Edgar Hoover, immense CIA abuses and the Gun Control Act of 1968, a special prosecutor law with inordinate power, the 1994 Crime Bill and 1996 Counterterrorism Act…
…and the Patriot Act, which gives the government powers it may well need to fight the war on terror, and gives unethical law enforcement and intelligence peopleimmense opportunities for abuse, as Patterico relates:
First, it is true that, as the anonymous source told the New York Sun, there is information that “could jeopardize the safety of certain individuals” — namely, the ages of Higazy’s family members, and the fact that his brother has arthritis. But I don’t really think that this information is that significant — or that its omission would provide a significant roadblock to security officials determined to harm Higazy’s family members.
The other thing you notice is, I believe, far more significant — which is why I put it in bold type. Namely, you have an FBI agent who admits that he threatened to ensure that a suspect’s family would be tortured by a foreign government.
Somehow, I think that’s the reason the information was submitted under seal.
The ethics of power depend on the integrity of government’s agents. Which, like any other people, takes constant scrutiny.
Oh, read the whole thing.
October 23rd, 2007 at 9:17 am
Mitch,
I never would have believed it of you. You, an America-hating terrorist-emboldener??
Don’t you know that to even discuss our enhanced interrogation techniques or question the integrity of our President and his loyal troops is to give aid and comfort to the Enemy?
Oh sure, we fought the Nazis and Imperial Japan in a worldwide war for democracy’s survival, and we stood eye to eye with the Communist Menace a hair-trigger away from Armeggedon for 50 years, but today’s threat is serious.
If that means secret detentions, torture, and warrantless wiretapping, so be it.
It’s the only way to defend our freedom.
/jc
October 23rd, 2007 at 10:28 am
You, an America-hating terrorist-emboldener??
No, I’m a real American.
This discussion kinda makes me giggle these days. Ten years ago, if the Feds slapped a “terrorist” label on a christian white separatist, you fully justified sending airstrikes into the cabin, whether the feds were right or wrong.
Funny the difference a change in administration makes.
October 23rd, 2007 at 12:15 pm
Hey Mitch,
If you want to love Saddam and have his little babies, that’s your business.
In hindsight, Higazy may have turned out to be “innocent” of being a member of the Al Qaeda-Iraqi 9/11 Conspiracy, but how are you going to know that if you don’t first ask him the question.
Naked. Chained in stress positions and subjected to extreme temperatures for days at a time. And threatened with simulating drowning. It’s called preemptive justice.
Just like we couldn’t know that Saddam didn’t have WMD (or did he) until we first preemptively tear the country apart and round up any suspicious Iraqis.
Naked. Stacked on top of each other. And threatened with Lynndie England.
If you don’t do this sort of stuff preemptively, then you have to wait for the Branch Davidians to shoot our brave federal agents trying to serve warrants, pussy-foot around for weeks, and wait for them to set their children on fire. Way too messy.
Lesson learned from Waco, shoot first, torture the living crap out of them later.
/jc
October 23rd, 2007 at 12:27 pm
Naked. Stacked on top of each other. And threatened with Lynndie England.
Is it warm in here?
October 23rd, 2007 at 2:35 pm
Mitch,
This piece is fine, I am just struggling to accept you mean it. FISA wasn’t violated, so said you, yet it was found to have been – Habeaus Corpus violations, no big deal – at least that was your commentary regarding Jose Padilla and Joseph Hamdi, yet the courts found twice it WAS in fact a big deal. We ignore Geneva Conventions, ‘quaint’ says A.G. Gonzo, and you agree saying ‘comprimise must be made’, yet a very conservatvie SCOTUS says “not so dang fast there buster”
The point is, I support virtually all of the things you brought up, really without exception. The right worries so much about the 2nd and the 10th, and yet, the 2nd they barely seem to understand, and the 10th needs to be partnered with the 9th and 14th to fairly and thoroughly evaluate the intent both of the original framers, and then of subsequent, and equally valid contributors.
and Slash, while I some may think your comments are ‘jokes’, I would too except, I think there are way too many in the US who really would bat an eye if it happened (even to what we now know was someone innocent of any participation 9/11). This is PRECISELY the exact opposite of the intent of the framers. The idea is to prevent the excesses of the majority being inflicted upon the minority, especially and including the unpopular, where such action infringes on basic human rights. Further, as signatory to I-III Geneva Conventions, we further committed to doing exactly NOT what you suggest. You (and the right wing fringe alone) may not consider it ‘torture’, but the world does, the courts did and do, and anyone who engages in it is considered to have tortured people – in fact, the ‘simulated drowning’ was recently defined as unacceptable conduct by our own DOJ – the same one saying such rules were ‘quaint’ in the past – and the reason is simple, causing extreme terror is torture – like it or not.
October 23rd, 2007 at 2:36 pm
ack.. wouldn’t bat an eye.. comes from re-crafting sentences several times in an effort to not offend.