This Week In Tyranny
Sunday, January 24, 2010 at 10:06AM No Associated Press content was harmed in the writing of this post
I keep waiting for some official word on Scott Horton’s blockbuster exposé on detainee deaths in Guantánamo. In the mean time here are two observations on media coverage of this bombshell story. First, Yves Smith:
Anyone familiar with the cognitive bias literature will recognize that the differences in the two renditions (AP US versus AP Canada) make a great deal of difference in their plausibility. Starting as the first one does, with a question, suggests that either rendition might be equally valid. But accounts that provide detail are consistently found in laboratory studies to be seen as more likely than those that are sketchy (the conjunction fallacy, for instance). The limited detail of the first version makes it seem less plausible, while the second (which includes a key element, that the purported “black site” was denied to exist) would be much more likely to be accepted as true.Then Andrew Sullivan:
The premise of both Thiessen and Yoo is that what was authorized was not torture, and that Gitmo is the best of the best facilities for the worst of the worst prisoners. But the possible deaths-by-torture in Gitmo - which explode their lies and spin - do not rate even a mention.
The Office of Legal Counsel is still being used to retroactively legalize criminality. There’s been a decent amount of pushback on the left from people who think some liberals are wrongly and simplistically claiming there is no difference between Bush and Obama. There definitely is a difference (see last item for one particularly substantial one), but this is one of those cases where it really is true.
So the FBI was “simply persuading” telecom companies with a “stream of urgent requests” for their records. The obvious threat behind such requests makes a mockery of the word persuasion, especially considering “Bureau officials said agents were working quickly under the stress of trying to thwart the next terrorist attack and were not violating the law deliberately.” When the government approaches a company and tells it that it is their patriotic duty to break the law in order to prevent the wholesale slaughter of citizens, there is no more persuasion involved than there is for the casting couch. It is intimidation in an unequal power relationship; it is coercion.
Happily, the Post notes the FBI is “confident that the safeguards enacted in 2007 have ended the problems.” Once more, with feeling: It’s time to look forward and not criminalize political differences. Nothing to see here, everything’s been cleaned up, move along folks. Oh, and one more thing: “Among those whose phone records were searched improperly were journalists for The Washington Post and the New York Times, according to interviews with government officials.” Think the Post would have reported it the same way if it was done to some poor anonymous schmuck in the middle of nowhere? Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad it got the coverage it did, but I suspect the subtext of the article isn’t so much “look at what they did!” as “look at what they did TO US!”
Glenn had a great post about the selective outrage towards government spying on citizens. Then later in the week Hillary Clinton gave a speech that included the following criticism:
In the last year, we’ve seen a spike in threats to the free flow of information. China, Tunisia, and Uzbekistan have stepped up their censorship of the internet. In Vietnam, access to popular social networking sites has suddenly disappeared. And last Friday in Egypt, 30 bloggers and activists were detained. One member of this group, Bassem Samir - who is thankfully no longer in prison - is with us today. So while it is clear that the spread of these technologies is transforming our world, it is still unclear how that transformation will affect the human rights and welfare of much of the world’s population.In China’s state-run Global Times an editorial pushed back:
The free flow of information is an universal value treasured in all nations, including China, but the US government’s ideological imposition is unacceptable and, for that reason, will not be allowed to succeed.Part of Clinton’s message was basically, “we are doing fine; here is what you people need to do.” Considering our own issues with government collecting information and spying on its citizens, it all might have gone over better if she had instead focused on our own issues. Saying that we can do what we want, but others have to do what we say, can certainly be interpreted as imperialism. What say we get our own house in order before we start calling out others, OK?
China’s real stake in the “free flow of information” is evident in its refusal to be victimized by information imperialism.
If the government secretly and illegally spies on you, you have standing to sue. But because it is secret, you are not aware you have standing. If you want to find out if you have standing by filing a lawsuit, the suit will be thrown out because you cannot prove you have standing. A nice, tight circle.
Ron Paul had some interesting thoughts on our military and intelligence services. His willingness to take on entrenched powers gets him a lot of good will in my book.
Cynthia Kouril reported on “a direct attack on the prosecutorial independence of DOJ and a direct attack” on Attorney General Eric Holder. The real news is that this attack came from the legislative branch and not the executive. If Holder gets kneecapped on the KSM trial I hope he considers “resign in protest” one of his options.
Weeks before Tuesday’s election debacle Brent Budowsky told (via) Democrats to get their act together. His message is even truer now. Nate Silver brilliantly diagnosed leadership as “nonchalant in good times and panicky in bad ones.”
If I’m ever thinking of picking a fight with Marcy Wheeler I hope someone who loves and cares about me talks me out of it.
On Thursday Barack Obama fired Donald Rumsfeld. Yves Smith’s take: “Obama Plans to Talk Even Tougher”
Last week I forgot to excerpt this from page 156 of Chalmers Johnson’s Nemesis: “The Global Posture Review is a purely military analysis of where the United States might like to have military bases in light of possible future wars, including those we might start.”
Lots of leftover links from the election in Massachusetts. Majority Leader Steny Hoyer:
Nobody in this House believes this next election is a slam dunk, which means they’re out raising money, they’re out in their districts - working hard, communicating on jobs and getting the economy moving.Note that raising money and communicating about jobs are the things that come to his mind, as opposed to creating jobs and getting effective policies in place. (And before you say the House is doing fine but the Senate is the bottleneck, voters won’t make such fine distinctions at election time. Either the Democrats - as a whole - succeed, or they fail.)
Here is Coakley Pollster Celinda Lake:
If Scott Brown wins tonight he’ll win because he became the change-oriented candidate. Voters are still voting for the change they voted for in 2008, but they want to see it. And right now they think they’ve got economic policies for Washington that are delivering more for banks than Main Street.Republican pollster Tony Fabrizio, making the case for single payer:
It is grossly over budget and causing the state severe fiscal problems. In short, Massachusetts voters know the shortcomings of government health care.Drew Westen:
The White House just couldn’t seem to “get” that the American people could see that they were constantly coming down on the side of the same bankers who were foreclosing people’s homes and shutting off the credit to small business owners, when they should have been helping the people whose homes were being foreclosed and the small businesses that were trying to stay afloat because of the recklessness of banks that were now starving them.Then there is the perpetually ignorant Evan Bayh:
The only we are able to govern successfully in this country is by liberals and progressives making common cause with independents and moderates. Whenever you have just the furthest left elements of the Dem party attempting to impose their will on the rest of the country - that’s not going to work too well. [How have the left elements imposed their will? Seriously. Name one thing.]Followed by the intermittently ignorant Barney Frank (via): “our respect for democratic procedures must rule out any effort to pass a health care bill as if the Massachusetts election had not happened.”
Jon Walker:
If Democrats can’t run on their record of passing legislation that makes positive change in people’s lives, they will suffer terribly in 2010.Which is what makes this so ridiculous:
Hoyer and other Democrats point out that they passed a jobs bill late in the year, pushed through a sweeping energy bill — with a controversial cap-and-trade measure — and helped pass a crackdown on credit card companies.Unemployment is still over 10%, the energy bill is a long-term project that has no immediate benefit (and is possibly dying of neglect in the Senate anyway. Memo to Democrats: Don’t brag on legislation you’ve authored that is not yet the law of the land), and the credit card reform is nice but nothing compared to the mortgage crisis which you’ve done nothing about.
Spencer Ackerman animates a legislator:
DEMOCRATIC SENATORFictional, tragically.
Are you motherfucking kidding me? The issue isn’t Guantanamo Bay! It’s indefinite detention without trial! It’s torture! It’s the betrayal of the Constitution! You could put the fucking facility in the middle of a Thai whorehouse and as long as it doesn’t provide its inmates with access to the courts I’ll oppose it! You could have Reed Richards of the motherfucking Fantastic Four open a portal to the Negative Zone, put the thing there and I’ll oppose it!
Goldman under investigation for its securities dealings. Stay tuned.
I will leave you on an extremely positive note: The Iraq war is quietly winding down. Full credit to Obama for that.
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