The leaks begin and the plot thickens…update…and thickens
The kabuki dance around accountability for the torture memos, torture itself, and much else is captured in this account at the Congressional Quarterly.
http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?docID=hsnews-000003098436&cpage=1
Why is Congress dragging its heels about investigating these matters?
This story about Rep. Jane Harman (D.-CA) suggest one reason why: “Sources: Wiretap Recorded Rep. Harman Promising to Intervene for AIPAC”
Who else in Congress is on an NSC wiretap promising what to whom? And why is this being leaked as the torture memos are being released. My thought: Many Senators and Representatives signed off on torture and many other doubtfully Constituional decisions. They would be implicated in their own investigations. The CIA and the NSC are warning them that that’s what will happen if these revelations go further.
HT: TPM
UPDATE: The Harman story has gone viral (as they say). For the truly interested here is the discussion on Pat Lang’s blog. I take it that military and defense intelligence (ret.) people drop in there, and so there are some interesting elaborations on what this story may be all about. Here: http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2009/04/jane-harmon-and-rod-blogojevich.html
Update 2: Jeff Stein who broke this story in the Congressional Quarterly does not admit the it came to light now because of the torture memo release (my conjecture), or the coming AIPAC former employee trials.
“Sandy from Brooklyn: Why is all this stuff coming out now?
Jeff Stein: No special reason. The story was not “planted” on me to influence any other events — in particular the looming AIPAC trials or things related to the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping program. I’ve known about it for some time but just not been able to pull it together until now for various reasons.”
We can read that with a grain of salt (did he get a clinching detail from an interested party that allowed him to put it together?). But what he says may be true.
Looks like a growing sticky wicket.
Why is the NSA wiretapping Congresspeople? Aren’t they supposed to be wiretapping terrorists?
JC: good point. In the case of Harman, she was speaking with someone from the Israeli Intelligence services, whom the NSA must have been wiretapping! But perhaps the NSA thinks some Congress people are terrorist. Surely not!
These sorts of issues follow from the expansive powers for the NSA given by the Bush Administration. Remember the old rule was they had to take their requests to a special federal court.
Addendum: it appears that the tap on Harman and/or whomever she was speaking with may have had an FSIS approval.
” — some Congress people are terrorist. Surely not!”
You obviously haven’t been following the antics and utterances of Michelle Bachman.
The Attorney General and DOJ prosecutors determine if a crime has been committed and will be prosecuted . Not Obama or congress people.. this according to Wash. Post
any interference would be wronggo
MOS: You said,
My thought: Many Senators and Representatives signed off on torture and many other doubtfully Constituional decisions. They would be implicated in their own investigations. The CIA and the NSC are warning them that that’s what will happen if these revelations go further.
For once in my life, I would have to agree with you on your hypothesis. I seem to remember reading about how, not long after 911, some Democrat (as well as Republican) Senators and Congresspeople were (secretly) briefed about waterboarding. There were comments made by one or more of the Democrats about it (the waterboarding) that indicated tacit approval. If I had the energy and inclination I would undertake a search for that info, but I don’t. However, my memory is not the most reliable resource, so I cannot vouch for this—maybe someone else would like to do that.
Anyone defending torture must explain how waterboarding 6 times a day for a 31 day month for 183 times on one man.. is moral??? effective??? OK???
Cheney claims it works… However I say Cheney would have died by the second day if waterboarded….stint and all
Some time ago Eric Posner listed some of the legal and political reasons that Bush administration officials would not be prosecuted for torture infractions. Here’s one of the considerations militating against trials or investigations, one that corresponds to the suggestion in the post:
“4. Back to politics. One can easily imagine the defense strategy, which will start by calling to the stand various Democratic senators and representatives who had been informed of the interrogation tactics and did not publicly object to them at the time. The testimony would surely be entertaining, as the politicians would be put in the impossible position of either admitting their moral complicity, which would make the entire trial look like a political show trial designed to punish Republicans but not Democrats, or looking like cowards who knew that the government was breaking the law but despite their oath to the Constitution were unwilling to do anything about it. Do Obama and Holder really want to put leaders of their own party in Congress in this position?”
http://volokh.com/posts/1232221565.shtml
Yikes!!! Is this what will bring Commonweal blogettes together: We agree that the complicity and duplicity of some congresspeople is muddying the congressional investigative waters. That may impede the “commission” idea of Senator Leahy. But Ed Gleason is right that the AG and the DOJ still have prosecutorial initiative and can bring criminal charges against the memo writers.
I noticed last night on the “Newshour” that the talking heads (a former CIA and Michael Rattner) agreed that Obama’s pass on criminal charges against CIA agents carefully limited it to those who had not exceeded the legal limits set forth by the permissions. Yet if two detainees were waterboarded 266 times, sounds to me like the limits were exceeded (at least as I have read the memos). We will certainly hear more about all of this.
I find myself feeling a bit disappointed in Obama’s “no charges statement” and his appearance at the CIA yesterday (though I haven’t read the full speech yet). But then Cheney is breathing down his neck (what a wretched man!).
The allegations against Harman have nothing to do with the use of torture.
I think it’s important not to confuse the situation — warrantless wiretapping is illegal in a different sense of the word from the use of torture. It violates our legal norms, but it is not generally understood to violate universal human rights.
There are definitely several Democrats who are believed to have been “informed” of the extent of warrantless wiretapping — Jay Rockefeller and Jane Harman being the most prominent. Perhaps some of them were also informed of waterboarding and other “extraordinary” interrogation methods, though I doubt very much they would have been informed of the extent to which either was actually being used.
More important, however, whether various Congress people were “secretly” informed, not to put too fine a point on the matter, the use of torture has been an open secret since the Abu Ghraib scandal. More than a few members of Congress tried to understand the extent of the use of torture and how it came to pass and who approved the use — but were prevented by the Bush administration by its refusal to release the materials that the Obama administration has now publicly disclosed.
Thank you Barbara for underling the distinction between the wire tapping issues and torture. I agree we (I) should be careful.
Ed Gleason: You mention the “effectiveness” of these techniques at the peril of what I infer to be your underlying argument in this post-modern society. The effectiveness of the techniques is irrelevent and should not even be dignified with a mention if you want to be successful. Vice President Cheny can read the electoral tea leaves from November – that is why he wants additional memos and data released so he can use the ruling party’s post-modernism against them. If you really want to inflict the maximum punishment on the maximum number of people associated with President Bush, the “effectiveness” rhetorical technique does you no favors.
MOS: You said,
But perhaps the NSA thinks some Congress people are terrorist. Surely not!
Actually, the NSA (like the CIA) is a “service” organization. It does not make policy; it implements policy. So whatever words, names, or phrases it is sifting out of the vast expanse of data it collects are there because someone in the administration wants them there.
Taken from the Dallas Morning News Jeffrey Weiss (H/T) –
Can torture be worth it? An update
8:38 AM Thu, Apr 23, 2009 Jeffrey Weiss/Reporter
We noted yesterday the release of a memo from retired Adm. Dennis Blair, the director of national intelligence, that said torture of terrorists had produced “high-value information.” Which raised the important moral question of when (not whether) evil done in a good cause is worth it, if the good is good enough compared with the evil. Blair has “clarified” his first statement:
“The bottom line is these techniques have hurt our image around the world, the damage they have done to our interests far outweighed whatever benefit they gave us and they are not essential to our national security.”
More details here.
And here is the text of one of the most famous short stories in the annals of science fiction: The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas, by Ursula K LeGuin. It speaks directly to this question. It is not long. Read it. http://harelbarzilai.org/words/omelas.txt
Thanks Bill… will read LeGuin.
I think we will continue to see “new information” appearing regularly. Of course, it is hard for those of us on the outside to know who’s spinning whom; where the leaks are really coming from; and who already knows what’s what. Difficult being an informed citizen!