{"id":4131,"date":"2009-02-04T09:09:55","date_gmt":"2009-02-04T14:09:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=4131"},"modified":"2009-02-04T09:11:02","modified_gmt":"2009-02-04T14:11:02","slug":"obama-preserves-renditions-as-counter-terrorism-tool-los-angeles-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=4131","title":{"rendered":"Crossed Fingers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Preserving (also instituting) the constitutional rights of non-American-citizens caught in action against America were a key part of the Obama campaign.<br \/>\nNow that they&#8217;re in charge and actually have to <em>deal <\/em>with terrorists?<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.latimes.com\/news\/la-na-rendition1-2009feb01,0,7548176,full.story\">Not quite:<\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>But the Obama administration appears to have determined that the rendition program was one component of the Bush administration&#8217;s war on terrorism that it could not afford to discard.<\/p>\n<p>The decision underscores the fact that the battle with Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups is far from over and that even if the United States is shutting down the prisons, it is not done taking prisoners.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Obviously you need to preserve some tools &#8212; you still have to go after the bad guys,&#8221; said an Obama administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity when discussing the legal reasoning. &#8220;The legal advisors working on this looked at rendition. It is controversial in some circles and kicked up a big storm in Europe. But if done within certain parameters, it is an acceptable practice.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>&#8220;controversial in some circles and kicked up a big storm in Europe&#8221;?\u00a0 Yes &#8211; the circles that <em>got President Obama elected, <\/em>at least in part over the collective vapors because Europe didn&#8217;t heart us anymore!<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>One provision in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/the_press_office\/EnsuringLawfulInterrogations\/\">one of Obama\u2019s orders<\/a> appears to preserve the CIA&#8217;s ability to detain and interrogate terrorism suspects as long as they are not held long-term. The little-noticed provision states that the instructions to close the CIA&#8217;s secret prison sites &#8220;do not refer to facilities used only to hold people on a short-term, transitory basis.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Despite concern about rendition, Obama&#8217;s prohibition of many other counter-terrorism tools could prompt intelligence officers to resort more frequently to the &#8220;transitory&#8221; technique.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Well, I&#8217;m sure Chris Matthews will be all over this one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Preserving (also instituting) the constitutional rights of non-American-citizens caught in action against America were a key part of the Obama campaign. Now that they&#8217;re in charge and actually have to deal with terrorists? Not quite: But the Obama administration appears to have determined that the rendition program was one component of the Bush administration&#8217;s war [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-president-obama","category-war-on-terror"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4131"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4131\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}