The Agonist - USA: Intel and Policy

Senate rejects effort to block civilian trials for 9/11 suspects

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 08:43:32 -0800

James Rosen | Washington | Nov 5

McClatchy - After an emotional debate over how to keep Americans safe, the Senate Thursday narrowly defeated an effort to prevent civilian trials in U.S. courts for the accused planners of the 9/11 attacks.

The Senate's 54-45 vote to reject the measure by Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., opens the door for President Barack Obama to bring Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the self-professed mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, to trial in federal court, rather than the military commissions Graham helped create.

Obama has pledged to shutter the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, by January and transfer some of its 220 detainees to the U.S. for trials in civilian courts.

Three Democrats — Jim Webb of Virginia and Arkansas' Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor — and independent Joe Lieberman of Connecticut joined all 40 Senate Republicans in voting for the measure.

Italy convicts former CIA agents in renditions trial

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 08:44:10 -0800

Milan | Nov 4

Reuters - An Italian judge sentenced 23 former CIA agents to up to eight years in prison on Wednesday for the abduction of a Muslim cleric in a landmark ruling against the "rendition" flights used by the former U.S. government.

Judge Oscar Magi dropped the case against another three American defendants and the ex-head of the Italy's Sismi military intelligence service, Nicolo Pollari, as well as his former deputy.

Who is seeing the real Afghanistan?

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 12:20:48 -0800

Last week the Washington Post printed two letters from different sources who had spent time on the ground in Afghanistan that came to very different conclusions about the American presence there.

First, there is the letter from Matthew Hoh, the former Marine captain who had fought in Iraq and had recently taken a temporary foreign service assignment in Zabul province. One State department official referred to this area as, “one of the five or six provinces always vying for the most difficult and neglected.” Hoh had developed great misgivings about the war and had become so disillusioned that he chose to resign. Hoh wote in his resignation letter,

I fail to see the value or the worth in continued U.S. casualties or expenditure of resources in support of the Afghan government in what is, truly, a 35-year old civil war…. The United States presence in Afghanistan greatly contributes to the legitimacy and strategic message of the Pashtun insurgency.

Matthew Hoh has served his country bravely in combat and he has responded to a policy with which he disagreed by making the honorable choice to resign. His observations about the situation in Zabul province merit serious consideration. I wish that many others in the previous administration who had serious misgivings about policy but waited to reveal them until after leaving office had, instead, followed Hoh’s example.

Several days later, a letter to the editor appeared in the Washington Post from Benjamin Joseloff, an American serving as a fellow at the Afghanistan Legal Education Project. This initiative, started by Stanford Law students, is devoted to a helping Afghan universities improve the quality of their legal education. Joseloff writes....

continue reading Brian Vogt's post at http://blog.psaonline.org/2009/11/03/who-is-seeing-the-real-afghanistan/

Lawsuit Probes Role of Psychologists in Terror War

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 21:21:30 -0800

William Fisher | New york | Nov 2

IPS - The state board responsible for licensing - and disciplining - psychologists in Louisiana is accused of turning a blind eye to serious allegations of abuse against one of its members, including complicity in beatings, religious and sexual humiliation, rape threats and painful body positions during his service as a senior advisor on interrogations for the U.S. military in Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib.

Pentagon officials won’t confirm Bush propaganda program ended

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 09:45:15 -0700

Brad Jacobson | Oct 29

Raw Story - [Also Read Part I and Part II of this series.]

The covert Bush administration program that used retired military analysts to generate favorable wartime news coverage may not have been terminated, Raw Story has found.

In interviews, Pentagon officials in charge of the press and community relations offices — which worked in partnership on the military analyst program — equivocated on the subject of whether the program has ended.

Last May, the Pentagon’s Office of Inspector General issued a memorandum rescinding a Bush administration investigative report on the retired military analyst program because it “did not meet accepted quality standards for an Inspector General work product.” The now-retracted report had exonerated officials of using propaganda and referred to the program as just "one of many outreach groups."

Yet Donald Horstman, Pentagon Inspector General deputy director, also stated in the memorandum that his office wouldn’t probe further because the “outreach program has been terminated and responsible senior officials are no longer employed by the Department.”

Pentagon officials wont confirm Bush propaganda program endedRaw Story’s investigation, however, has shown that some “responsible senior officials” are still employed by the Defense Department, including Bryan Whitman, who remains a chief Pentagon spokesman and head of all media operations, and Roxie Merritt, who is head of the Pentagon’s community relations office.

Raw Story has discovered that Horstman’s other justification for not reopening an investigation at the time – “because the [retired military analyst] outreach program has been terminated” – remains an open question.

A week after David Barstow’s New York Times expose on the program broke in April 2008, Whitman said the military analyst program’s suspension was only “temporary.”

Juanita Castro worked with the CIA

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 11:47:35 -0700

Miami | Oct 26

Univision - After living in exile for 45 years shielded by the silence of privacy, Juanita Castro, finally decided to share their personal experiences and reveal some of their best kept secrets. The biggest: that worked with the CIA, the intelligence agency to his brothers Fidel and Raul considered archenemy.

Translation by Google, but readable. The original is here.

Ban on 'torture documents' lifted

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 12:51:33 -0700

Oct 16

BBC - The High Court has ruled that US intelligence documents containing details of the alleged torture of a former UK resident can be released.

Ethiopian-born Binyam Mohamed, 31, who spent four years in Guantanamo Bay, claims British authorities colluded in his torture while he was in Morocco.

The UK government denies allegations of collusion and says it will appeal against the court's judgement.

It had stopped judges publishing the claims on national security grounds.

The key document in the case is a summary of abuse allegations that US intelligence officers shared with their counterparts in London.

Any publication of the material will be delayed until an appeal takes place.

Report: US considers phone companies ‘arm of government’

Sat, 10 Oct 2009 21:17:28 -0700

Daniel Tencer | Oct 10

Raw Story - The US government doesn't have to reveal information about phone companies that may have spied illegally on Americans because those phone companies are an "arm of the government," the US Justice Department argued in a recent court case.

In a lawsuit over the Bush administration's decision to give immunity to telecom companies over its warrantless wiretapping program, the Justice Department argued that it doesn't have to publicly reveal what it discussed with the phone companies because those discussions were "inter-agency communications," explains Ryan Singel at Wired.

He cites a passage from a court document in which the department argues that "the communications between the agencies and telecommunications companies regarding the immunity provisions of the proposed legislation have been regarded as intra-agency...."

Singel was reporting on privacy watchdog group Electronic Frontier Foundation's two-year-long legal battle with the DoJ over access to those communications. In 2008, the Bush administration passed a law granting reotroactive immunity to phone companies that had participated in the administration's warrantless wiretapping program.

After news reports in 2007 suggested that the phone companies had lobbied the government to have those protections put in place, the EFF launched a freedom-of-information request to have discussions between the Justice Department and the phone companies made public. When the government refused, the EFF took the matter to court.

On September 24, a US District Court judge sided with the EFF and ordered the government to "release more records about the lobbying campaign to provide immunity to the telecommunications giants that participated in the NSA's warrantless surveillance program," the EFF stated.

The judge gave the Justice Department until last Friday to hand over the documents. But, late on Thursday, the government appealed for a 30-day stay of the judge's order. That order was refused, but the judge has delayed any further decisions on the case for another week.

CONGRESS 'A MERE APPENDAGE' OF EXECUTIVE BRANCH?

Blogger Marcy Wheeler at FireDogLake says there are more interesting revelations about the government's attitude towards constitutional powers in the delay request it filed last week.

Government admits filming torture of Gitmo inmate, alleged 9/11 plotter

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 02:09:53 -0700

Stephen C. Webster | Oct 6

Raw Story - The United States government admitted on Monday that the torture of a Saudi man alleged to be part of the 9/11 plot was recorded on video, according to court documents procured by the Center for Constitutional Rights.

The tapes, allegedly showing the torture of Mohammed al Qahtani, 31, have long been kept under wraps, but a discovery motion for video of his interrogations led the court to acknowledge their existence and order their release.

"The videotapes the government is required to produce will reveal the time period at the end of three months of intensive solitary confinement and isolation that immediately preceded the implementation of the 'First Special Interrogation Plan,' a regime of systematic torture techniques approved by former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld for use against Mr. al Qahtani," claimed a CCR media advisory.

Lawyers with the Center for Constitutional Rights have represented Qahtani since 2005. The accused 9/11 plotter has been a Guantanamo inmate since 2002.

Guantanamo prison won't be closed by January as planned

Sun, 27 Sep 2009 07:48:32 -0700

Washington | Sept 27

DPA - The US prison for suspected terrorist detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, will not be closed by January as planned, US government officials said Saturday.

According to a report by US broadcaster CNN, two members of the US administration stated that the planned date to close the facility would not be met due to unresolved legal questions.

The closure of the facility is still planned to proceed as soon as possible, the officials said.

Obama will bypass Congress to detain suspects indefinitely

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 10:23:00 -0700

John Byrne | Sept 24

Raw Story -

President Barack Obama has quietly decided to bypass Congress and allow the indefinite detention of terrorist suspects without charges.

The move, which was controversial when the idea was first floated in The Washington Post in May, has sparked serious concern among civil liberties advocates. Such a decision allows the president to unilaterally hold "combatants" without habeas corpus -- a legal term literally meaning "you shall have the body" -- which forces prosecutors to charge a suspect with a crime to justify the suspect's detention.

Obama's decision was buried on page A 23 of The New York Times' New York edition on Thursday. It didn't appear on that page in the national edition. (Meanwhile, the front page was graced with the story, "Richest Russian's Newest Toy: An N.B.A. Team.")

Rather than seek approval from Congress to hold some 50 Guantanamo detainees indefinitely, the administration has decided that it has the authority to hold the prisoners under broad-ranging legislation passed in the wake of Sept. 11, 2001. Former President George W. Bush frequently invoked this legislation as the justification for controversial legal actions -- including the NSA's warrantless wiretapping program.

Proof of CIA kidnapping 'indisputable': Italian prosecutor

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 02:05:10 -0700

Milan | Sept 24

The Independent - A top Italian prosecutor Wednesday made his case against 26 US secret agents accused of snatching a terror suspect from a Milan street and sending him home to Egypt where he claims he was tortured.

"No one could seriously argue that they were in Italy for other reasons" than to abduct Milan imam Abu Omar and transfer him to Cairo via two US military bases, said Amando Spataro, citing detailed aviation, cell phone, rental car and hotel records.

"The data of all the flights ... indisputably show one sole possibility," Spataro said as he began closing arguments in the case.

Abu Omar, whose real name is Osama Hassan Nasr, was abducted while walking to his mosque here in February 2003 in what was thought to be among scores of covert kidnappings around the world since the attacks of September 11, 2001, in the so-called extraordinary rendition programme.

The radical Islamist opposition figure, who enjoyed political asylum in Italy, was taken to the US air force base in Aviano, northeastern Italy, then flown to the US base in Ramstein, Germany, and on to Cairo, Spataro said.

Twenty-six Americans -- 25 CIA agents including the former CIA substation chief in Milan, Robert Lady, plus an air force colonel -- are being tried in absentia in the case.

Obama: "nobody's above the law."

Sun, 20 Sep 2009 07:01:56 -0700

James Vicini | Washington | Sept 20

Reuters - Obama shrugs off request to drop CIA abuse probe

President Barack Obama shrugged off a request by seven former CIA chiefs to end a probe into allegations of prisoner abuse, saying in an interview released on Sunday that "nobody's above the law."

excuse me but..

Senators’ Patriot Act ‘fix’ would eliminate telecom immunity

Thu, 17 Sep 2009 17:53:44 -0700

Sept 17

Raw Story - A group of US Senators unveiled legislation Thursday aiming to strip telecommunications firms that took part in a hugely controversial Bush-era spying program of immunity from lawsuits.

The bill aims to “fix problems with surveillance laws that threaten the rights and liberties of American citizens” without crippling the government’s ability to track suspected terrorists, the lawmakers said in a joint statement.

The legislation would affect the way the US government can search Americans’ personal records, conduct wiretapping, and otherwise collect and use information on US citizens.

Among the provisions sure to grab attention, it revisits a secret program launched by former president George W. Bush after the September 11, 2001 attacks that collected sensitive information for years without a court order.

Lawmakers, including then-senator Barack Obama, voted last year to grant telecommunications firms that took part in the program immunity from lawsuits by Americans alleging illegal breaches of privacy rights.

Democratic Senator Russell Feingold, long a critic of government spy powers on Americans, was a chief author of the legislation presented Thursday.

Bin Laden message appears online

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 06:11:07 -0700

Lee Glendinning & Matthew Weav | Sept 14

The Guardian - Recording attributed to al-Qaida leader warns Barack Obama he is 'powerless' to win Afghan war on his own terms

Al-Qaida has used the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks and the spectre of Osama bin Laden to taunt the United States in a new audio message warning that Barack Obama is powerless to win the war in Afghanistan on his own terms.

The message – entitled a "statement to the American people", and purportedly recorded by the al-Qaida leader – says the US has failed to grasp why the attacks occurred, and its retaliatory wars have "cost you a lot without any result whatsoever".

Bin Laden messages are typically released around 11 September. The new 10-minute address has emerged two days after the eighth anniversary. It appeared on the as-Sahab website, which supporters of al-Qaida use. Earlier this month, as-Sahab said it would soon carry a "present" to Muslims from Bin Laden.

Site Intelligence Group, a monitoring firm that translated the address, said Bin Laden blamed the war on the "pro-Israel lobby" and corporate interests.

According to the Site translation, the stated purpose of the address is "to remind you of the causes" of September 11, chiefly "your support to your Israeli allies who occupy our land of Palestine".