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Medical marijuana raid raises question: What’s Obama policy?

Sunday, March 22nd, 2009

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UN Launches Probe of Secret Detention Sites

Sunday, March 22nd, 2009

By Lisa Schlein |

U.N. human rights investigators are launching a year-long global investigation into secret places of detention. They note the use of such facilities has increased since the global war on terror was declared after the September 11, 2001 terror attacks in the United States. The investigators say their probe will look at so-called rendition flights used by the Central Intelligence Agency, or CIA, in the United States to secretly transfer suspects to third countries for interrogation. The UN probe also will examine the policies of secret detention as practiced by other nations around the world.

Cracks are appearing in the wall of silence surrounding the secret practice of extraordinary rendition as prisoners are coming forward to tell of their ordeals.

“The torture was going on sometimes weekly, sometimes monthly,” said a former prisoner at Guantanamo Bay, Binyam Mohamed, who accuses the British security service MI5 of helping U.S. intelligence agents interrogate him after he was seized in Pakistan in 2002. Mohamed claims U.S. agents took him to Morocco, where he was tortured.

“I want to see people taking responsibility for what has happened over the seven years,” said Mohamed. “If we let people just do what they want to do and not be held accountable, that is opening up the doors to torture and abuse.”

The U.N. investigators who are launching a probe into secret places of detention agree with Mohamed. They contend people who are detained in these facilities are intentionally placed outside the protection of the law.

They say people who are confined in such places run great risks of being tortured and even disappearing for good.

UN Special Investigator on Torture, Manfred Nowak, says secret places of detention, enforced disappearances and torture are closely interconnected. He adds the risk of being subjected to torture is particularly high in these facilities.

“We have had the experiences in many Latin American states, but also in many other states where enforced disappearances were practiced,” said Nowak. “Also, in the form of fighting terrorism. There is nothing new that now after 9/11, in the global fight against terrorism, that secret places of detention again came to the forefront of our attention, of course, in the context of CIA practices, but going far beyond that.”

The U.N. probe will look at CIA rendition flights that secretly transferred terror suspects for interrogation, mainly in North Africa and the Middle East. Nowak is very critical of the widespread use of this practice by the former Bush administration.

“The very purpose of so-called extraordinary renditions employed by the Bush administration was that in cases where the enhanced interrogation techniques used by the CIA in places like Guantanemo Bay, etc. were not ’successful’ … enough, that they were then sent to countries known for their torture practices by means of extraordinary rendition flights,” said Nowak.

U.N. human rights investigators applaud moves made by President Barack Obama in pledging to close Guantanamo Bay and stopping the practice of torture and extraordinary rendition. But, they say they will not let the president off the hook until a number of important questions are answered and certain reprehensible acts are ended.

UN Special Investigator on terrorism, Martin Scheinin, says he will be watching the president’s moves closely.

“We can at least hope that this is a real change, which will put an end to the most horrendous forms of extraordinary rendition,” said Scheinin, “where persons were not brought to the United States at all, but were dumped in third countries for the purpose of torture.”

Member of Parliament in Pakistan, Sanaullah Baloch, praises the investigation that is getting under way. But, he tells the U.N. experts to expand their focus to include countries like his own in their probe.

“In Pakistan, the Asian Human Rights Commission of Pakistan has identified 52 illegal detention centers in Pakistan,” said Baloch. “So my suggestion is that there should be a type of mechanism that United Nations aid, United Nations cooperation and United Nations support to the democratic regimes must be linked, should be linked with this protection of human rights and particularly getting rid of this practice of enforced disappearances, arbitrary detentions and secret detention centers. ”

The U.N. investigators agree that torture in secret places of detention might be useful in eliciting information. But, they argue that more often than not, the information received is wrong and might end up being counterproductive.

Regardless of the quality of information received, they note torture, under any circumstances, is absolutely prohibited under international law.

The experts expect their one-year global probe into secret detention centers to shine more light on the extensiveness of these facilities and how they operate.

They acknowledge they will not be able to prevent similar practices in the future, but they are hopeful their study will promote changes for the better.

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Thousands protest anniversary of Iraq war

Sunday, March 22nd, 2009

They want troops out now, fear that Obama is ’stalling’

By Nafeesa Syeed |

WASHINGTON — Before war protesters ended their demonstration yesterday afternoon, several placed cardboard coffins in front of the offices of northern Virginia defense contractors such as KBR Inc. and Lockheed Martin Corp. as riot police stood by.

 

“Lockheed Martin, you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide!” they chanted as part of a demonstration that began in Washington to mark the sixth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq.

Arlington County, Va., authorities estimated there were 2,500 to 3,000 protesters.

Organizers from the ANSWER Coalition said more than 1,000 groups sponsored the protest to call for an end to the Iraq war.

Demonstrators carrying cardboard coffins and signs saying “We need jobs and schools, not war” and “Stop the war!” beat drums and played trumpets as they marched.

Protesters demanded that President Barack Obama immediately withdraw all U.S. troops from Iraq, saying that thousands of Iraqis have died and thousands of American troops have been wounded or killed.

“We think it’s especially important for this new administration to feel the pressure from people that we don’t want more war,” said Obama supporter Pat Halle, 59, of Baltimore.

Anti-war activists said even though former President George W. Bush is out of power, they are disappointed with what they see as stalled action from Obama.

“Obama seems to be led somewhat by the bureaucracies. I want him to follow up on his promise to end the war,” said 66-year-old Perry Parks of Rockingham, N.C., who said he served in the Army for nearly 30 years, including in Vietnam. “But the longer it goes, the more it seems like he’s stalling.”

Obama has said he plans to withdraw roughly 100,000 troops by summer 2010. He promises to pull the last of the U.S. troops by the end of 2011, which is in accord with a deal Iraqis signed with Bush.

About 138,000 U.S. troops were in Iraq as of March 13.

Meanwhile, in California, hundreds of protesters gathered in Hollywood. Among them were peace advocate Cindy Sheehan, whose son was killed in Iraq, Oscar-winning screenwriter Paul Haggis and Ron Kovic, a paralyzed Vietnam veteran whose story was chronicled in the book and film Born on the Fourth of July.

Protesters in Los Angeles were expected to follow a rally with a march and then a symbolic “die in” where they would lie down in a major Hollywood Boulevard intersection to symbolize the soldiers who have died in the war.

Protesters waved signs and sold bumper stickers and T-shirts commemorating the event.

Denise Clendenning, 51, an environmental scientist from Chino Hills, Calif., said she hopes Obama will rethink his strategy of withdrawing most of the troops from Iraq and call all of them back instead, and those in Afghanistan as well. “We all have a lot of confidence in him,” she said, holding two signs that read “Out of Iraq” and “End the War.”

Donna Moreno, 32, a medical worker from Gardena, Calif., said she was representing her Vietnam-veteran father at the rally.

“I know Obama is making the effort. I have hope,” she said, wearing an Obama shirt and several buttons. “But I’m here to protest the war and job situation.”

This year, the protest in Washington was held on a weekend, a few days after the March 19 anniversary of the war, which began in 2003. Last year’s weekday protest was marked by lower turnout than in previous years.

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Blackwater sued in US court over alleged cover-up

Sunday, March 22nd, 2009

The widow of a 32-year-old Iraqi has filed suit in a federal court against private security firm Xe, formerly Blackwater, for allegedly trying to hide that her husband was killed by one of its security agents who was drunk.

According to the suit filed in federal court in San Diego, California, a copy of which was obtained by AFP, “on Christmas eve 2006, a highly intoxicated and heavily armed Xe-Blackwater employee named Andrew Moonen, shot and killed a man named Raheem Khalaf Sa’adoon, for no reason.”

“Although Xe-Blackwater has learned of their employee’s crime short after it occurred, Xe-Blackwater acted, and continues to act, in conspiracy with Moonen to evade any accountability whatsoever,” the suit charges.

The lawsuit also alleges the company rushed to get the agent out of Iraq, and destroyed documents in the case.

It also charges that Xe, which until recently was a contractor for the Department of State in Iraq, does not punish employees found guilty of wrongdoing, but “instead, Xe-Blackwater continued to rehire and deploy mercenaries known to have killed innocents.”

The company, which made hundreds of millions of dollars protecting State Department officials in war zones, was banned from working in Iraq two months ago because of a 2007 incident in which 17 civilians were killed by Blackwater guards.

An Iraqi investigation found that 17 civilians were killed and 20 wounded when Blackwater guards opened fire with automatic weapons in Baghdad while escorting an American diplomatic convoy.

US prosecutors say 14 civilians were killed in the incident. Five former Blackwater guards pleaded not guilty in January to manslaughter charges.

“From Mr. Sa’adoon’s death to the litany of other civilian shootings by Xe-Blackwater personnel, the company has created, fostered and refused to curb a culture of lawlessness and unaccountability,” said a statement from Susan Burke, an attorney for Sa’adoon’s widow.

AFP

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CIA Has 3,000 Docs on Torture Tapes

Sunday, March 22nd, 2009

The CIA has about 3,000 documents related to the 92 destroyed videotapes that showed “war on terror” detainees being subjected to harsh interrogations, the Justice Department has disclosed, suggesting an extensive back-and-forth between CIA field operatives and officials of the Bush administration.

By Jason Leopold

The Justice Department said the documents include “cables, memoranda, notes and e-mails” related to the destroyed CIA videotapes. Those tapes included 12 that showed two “high-value” prisoners undergoing the drowning sensation caused by waterboarding and other brutal techniques that have been widely denounced as torture.

The number of documents – but not their contents – was mentioned Friday in a Justice Department letter from Lev Dassin, acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, to U.S. District Court Judge Alvin Hellerstein in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union.

Dassin told Judge Hellerstein that unredacted versions of the materials would be available for only him to review “in-camera” on March 26. The CIA also refused to provide the ACLU with a list of individuals who watched the videotapes prior to their destruction because that information “is either classified or otherwise protected by statute.”

The number of relevant documents – “roughly 3,000,” according to the letter – adds weight to the belief that CIA interrogators were in frequent communication with headquarters at Langley, Virginia, and with senior Bush administration officials who were monitoring the harsh techniques used and approving them one by one or even in combination.

The volume of communications also lends support to the suspicion that many officials were involved in the debate about what to do with the incriminating videotapes, not just one or two CIA officers acting on their own. CIA officials have said the videotapes were destroyed to prevent disclosure of how the agency’s interrogators subjected “war on terror” detainees to waterboarding and other brutal methods.

Torture Allegations

Last weekend, author Mark Danner disclosed a report prepared by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), concluding that the abuse of 14 “high-value” detainees “constituted torture.”

“In addition, many other elements of the ill treatment, either singly or in combination, constituted cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment,” according to the ICRC report. Since the ICRC’s responsibilities involve ensuring compliance with the Geneva Conventions and supervising the treatment of prisoners of war, the organization’s findings carry legal weight.

The ICRC report also found that there was a consistency in many details from the detainees who were interviewed separately and that the first “high-value” detainee to be captured, Abu Zubaydah, appeared to have been used as something of a test case by his interrogators. Zubaydah was one of the prisoners whose interrogations were videotaped by the CIA.

Another detainee subjected to waterboarding and other abuse was Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, the alleged mastermind of the attack on the USS Cole in 2000. Two weeks ago, the Justice Department released a heavily censored page of what appears to be a CIA internal report about the torture of “war on terror” detainees, which read: “Interrogators administered [redacted] waterboard to Al-Nashiri.”

The same page indicated that a dozen of the 92 destroyed videotapes of the CIA’s interrogations were of detainees undergoing brutal treatment. “There are 92 videotapes, 12 of which include EIT [enhanced interrogation techniques] applications,” the page says.

The ACLU criticized the Justice Department for continuing to withhold documents related to the destruction of the torture tapes.

“The government is still needlessly withholding information about these tapes from the public, despite the fact that the CIA’s use of torture is well known,” said Amrit Singh, staff attorney with the ACLU. “Full disclosure of the CIA’s illegal interrogation methods is long overdue and the agency must be held accountable for flouting the rule of law.”

Besides the ACLU’s FOIA lawsuit, the destruction of the CIA tapes has been the subject of a year-long criminal investigation by John Durham, the acting U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia who was appointed special prosecutor last year by Attorney General Michael Mukasey.

On Wednesday, the ACLU called on Attorney General Eric Holder to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Bush administration officials who signed off on and approved the torture of prisoners.

“The fact that such crimes have been committed can no longer be doubted or debated, nor can the need for an independent prosecutor be ignored by a new Justice Department committed to restoring the rule of law,” said ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero.

“Given the increasing evidence of deliberate and widespread use of torture and abuse, and that such conduct was the predictable result of policy changes made at the highest levels of government, an independent prosecutor is clearly in the public interest,” Romero said.

The Justice Department’s restrictive handling of the 3,000 documents comes one day after Attorney General Holder issued sweeping new Freedom of Information guidelines for all Executive Branch agencies to “apply a presumption of openness when administering the FOIA.”

“The American people have the right to information about their government’s activities, and these new guidelines will ensure they are able to obtain that information under principles of openness and transparency,” Holder said Thursday.  

Holder said FOIA requests would be denied and records withheld “only if the agency reasonably foresees that disclosure would harm an interest protected by one of the statutory exemptions, or disclosure is prohibited by law.” But even then, all federal agencies were directed to at least “release records in part whenever they cannot be released in full.”

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10 government databases ‘will break the law’

Sunday, March 22nd, 2009

By David Leppard  |

AT least 10 of the giant government databases built or planned by ministers unlawfully breach privacy, according to a report.

The computer registers — including the DNA database, the national identity register, the Contactpoint child protection database and the health service patients’ register – all breach human rights and data protection laws, the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust will say in research released tomorrow.

It argues that they should be scrapped or fundamentally redesigned to take privacy objections into account.

The report, whose joint author, an academic expert on privacy at Cambridge University who is one of the most respected in Britain, warns that ministers are planning to spend a further £100 billion on information technology databases over the next five years while only 30% of big information technology projects succeed.

Claims by the government that the databases make the provision of public services such as health easier are dismissed as “illusory”.

In fact, the giant repositories of personal data can expose people to greater risk, particularly the most vulnerable, the research says.

More than half the nearly 50 state databases have “significant problems” in protecting privacy, it adds. Only one in seven of the databases assessed by the study was “effective, proportionate or necessary”.

The report is the most comprehensive and damning study of the creeping culture of state surveillance.

It has been overseen by a team including Ross Anderson, professor of security engineering at the University of Cambridge’s computer laboratory.

Campaigners and opposition MPs say the rapid emergence of Britain as a “Big Brother” society is transforming the relationship between the citizen and the state.

One of the planned databases condemned by the report is a Home Office system to store information on every telephone call, e-mail and internet visit made in Britain.

Jacqui Smith, the home secretary, had been planning to announce the database in a bill last October.

She backtracked after officials in her department reportedly expressed concerns about the legality of the plan. Ministers had been planning to release a consultation paper on their plans in January.

This has now been delayed amid speculation at Westminster that Gordon Brown has ordered ministers to ditch all controversial and potentially unpopular legislation in the run-up to the general election, expected in 2010.

The report says Britain is alone among developed countries in the pace at which it is expanding national database systems.

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