Turley on Countdown: Enemy to Rule of Law

Last night on Countdown with Keith Olbermann Law Professor Johnathon Turley of George Washington University made a series of startling statements, yet in my opinion Turley's comments where actually somewhat behind the curve of the facts. From Dkos.

OLBERMANN: We haven't even addressed and for time's sake, now, there's study after study that indicates that torture presents falsely positive information. People will say anything they think the torturer wants to hear. But... about again the layout between Bush and McCain: one question being asked a lot that I have not heard definitively answered anywhere... Is there really a difference between what the President has proposed on this and what the McCain/Warner/Graham version? Are they both torture? Aren't they both redefining the Geneva Conventions to some degree?

TURLEY: Well you really hit, I think, the most salient aspect of this. Whatever comes out of a compromise, it does seem to be an effort to redefine the Geneva Conventions because otherwise, why are you doing this? You don't need to redefine the Geneva Conventions - you don't have to do anything with it. It's a treaty. We're a signatory. We've never had to do this before. We've gotten along just fine, as has the world, with the language of the Geneva Convention. If we make any effort at all to try to redefine it or tweak it or to amplify it, the world will see that as our effort to lawyer the Geneva Convention to try to create some type of loophole or excuse for conduct

Actually we have done it before, we did it in Vietnam - we did it in South America. What we haven't done before is admit it, or even openly discuss it as the President has done.

OLBERMANN: You'll remember Mr. Gonzales' description of this five years ago as "quaint" - the Geneva Conventions or portions of it -

TURLEY: [laughs] Right -

For some reason the "quaint" memo gets a ton of play, but is in fact of little consequence. In that memo Gonzales were referring to some rather minor and trivial Geneva requirements. The big memo is the one which was revealed by MIchael Isikoff of Newsweek, which indicates Gonzales advice to the President to deny Geneva protections to detainees - specifically to avoid War Crimes Prosecution - 8 months prior to the Bybee memo.

In the memo, the White House lawyer focused on a little known 1996 law passed by Congress, known as the War Crimes Act, that banned any Americans from committing war crimes--defined in part as "grave breaches" of the Geneva Conventions. Noting that the law applies to "U.S. officials" and that punishments for violators "include the death penalty," Gonzales told Bush that "it was difficult to predict with confidence" how Justice Department prosecutors might apply the law in the future. This was especially the case given that some of the language in the Geneva Conventions--such as that outlawing "outrages upon personal dignity" and "inhuman treatment" of prisoners--was "undefined."

When the President says that the language "outrages upon personal dignity" are "vague" -- this is what he's talking about. He was advised in 2002 by his attorney that his actions in regards to detainees could put him under personal criminal liability. The President did indeed give the order to exclude detainees from Geneva, hence avoiding potential War Crimes prosecution -- that is until the Supreme Court brought Geneva back to the table with the Hamdan decision. Between that orginal decision 5 years ago and now has been a long, dirty road. SecDef Rumsfeld had been the chief architect of the "new expanded" interrogation policies that were first used at Gitmo, and then exported to Bagram AFB and Abu Ghraib.

"It is difficult to predict the motives of prosecutors and independent counsels who may in the future decide to pursue unwarranted charges based on Section 2441 [the War Crimes Act]," Gonzales wrote. The best way to guard against such "unwarranted charges," the White House lawyer concluded, would be for President Bush to stick to his decision--then being strongly challenged by Secretary of State Powell-- to exempt the treatment of captured Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters from Geneva convention provisions. "Your determination would create a reasonable basis in law that (the War Crimes Act) does not apply which would provide a solid defense to any future prosecution," Gonzales wrote.

The fact that Powell is speaking out now, is not nearly as strange as Turley has made it appear - he's been speaking out about this issue for quite some time while he was within the Administration. He has little choice but to continue to speak out although he is no longer an "insider".

OLBERMANN: - to some degree. Last Friday here you were telling us that some of the detainees from the secret CIA cells, when moved to Guantanamo, might have the opportunity in the immediate future to talk to the Red Cross about their own interrogations, is there anything more to the possibility that that's going to happen, which might explain the President's anger and his rush over this as having more to do with what his Administration has already sanctioned and not about what is yet to come?

TURLEY: It has all the indications that that is exactly what is happening. The Administration for years has conspicuously attempted to get things like waterboarding approved as non-torture. Waterboarding, when you convince someone they're going to drown by drowning them. At least to the point of death. And waterboarding is defined as torutre around the world.

Now obviously the Administration has not gotten that thus far. But there is a strong suspicion that we have indeed been engaging in torture. Remember, some of these people were captured when the White House had signed a memo that defined non-torture as anything short of organ failure. That they believed that as long as they didn't cause organ failure or death, they were not engaged in torture. That shocked the world.

So what has happened in the past in our name has many of us wondering. But there is a feeling - and I am one of those people that has it - that we're about to hear some accounts coming out that our President may have ordered American personnel to become torturers. And that is so serious it is almost beyond definition.

I don't think we have to wait until the former "ghost detainees" talk to the RedCross - we already have documents from the FBI and Dod available at a single click right --> here.

Among the documents released today by the ACLU is a May 19, 2004 Defense Intelligence Agency document implicating Sanchez in potentially abusive interrogation techniques. In the document, an officer in charge of a team of interrogators stated that there was a 35-page order spelling out the rules of engagement that interrogators were supposed to follow, and that they were encouraged to “go to the outer limits to get information from the detainees by people who wanted the information.” When asked to whom the officer was referring, the officer answered “LTG Sanchez.” The officer stated that the expectation coming from “Headquarters” was to break the detainees.

The ACLU also released an Information Paper entitled “Allegations of Detainee Abuse in Iraq and Afghanistan” dated April 2, 2004, two weeks before the world saw the pictures of torture at Abu Ghraib prison. The paper outlined the status of 62 investigations of detainee abuse and detainee deaths. Cases include assaults, punching, kicking and beatings, mock executions, sexual assault of a female detainee, threatening to kill an Iraqi child to “send a message to other Iraqis,” stripping detainees, beating them and shocking them with a blasting device, throwing rocks at handcuffed Iraqi children, choking detainees with knots of their scarves and interrogations at gunpoint.

“These documents are further proof that the abuse of detainees was widespread and systemic, and not aberrational,” said Amrit Singh, a staff attorney with the ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project. “We know that senior officials endorsed this abuse, but these officials have yet to be held accountable.”

Turley continued...

OLBERMANN: How serious would that be for the President? Are there elements of the Constitution that refer to international treaties that make an American President violating international agreements like that liable or subject to criminal action within this country, let alone internationally?

TURLEY: It is a violation of both domestic and international law. But more importantly, torture is a moral under every major religion. That you cannot fight a moral war with immoral means. And if we're ready to embrace immoral means, if that's how we're going to fight this war, then we have lost. And no one will come to our aid. Wil will be alone. And that's what happens when you become - in the view of many - an enemy to the rule of law. And we cannot afford that to happen [sic].

It's already happened Mr. Turley - it's already happened. The only real question is not whether the compromise bill coming out of the Senate changes Geneva, which it probably won't, the real danger is that it will - yet again - abrogate Habeas Corpus by denying detainees held of foreign soil the right to challenge the basis for their detention in court. This would not only affect -11 mastermind Khallid Sheik Mohammad, but also Pulitzer Prize winning AP Photographer Bilal Hussein who has been held by U.S. Forces for five months without charges or a hearing.

Chances are that any such law would eventually be struck down, just at the Graham-Levin Amendment to the Detainee Treatment Act was by Hamdan - but that eventually is years away, and quite a bit of "alternative interrogation" could certainly take place during that time, while the subjects of such methods would have no representation and no legal recourse available to them.

Vyan

Coming off the rails for Rove

This week the President's plan to "reinterpret" the Geneva Conventions ran into a bit of a snag - three snags - named McCain, Warner and Graham. But there's a subtext to this story of Republican vs Republican, if the President, Vice President and Secretary Rumsfeld's claims that anyone who disagree with them is "confused", "aiding the enemy" or an "appeaser" -- does that also apply to their Republican critics such as Colin Powell?

In opposing the President's plans Senator McCain stated Sunday on This Week.

"When in our custody Al-qaeda deserve nothing - except the fundamental rights that all prisoners under the Geneva Conventions. The Vietnamese treated us rather badly, but that didn't mean that responded by altering the Geneva Conventions".

"I believe this has nothing to do with politics," McCain said. "No matter what the political impact is, this is a matter of conscience."

But can McCain truly be taken seriously after his recent rightward turn and embracing of old foes such as Jerry Falwell? He seems to be the epitome of an opportunist, last year he fought hard to implement a torture ban, despite fierce Administration opposition only to have that ban implemented with a poison pill (the Graham/Levin Amendment) which denied detainees access to the courts and effectively rendered the entire bill moot and unenforceable. What is the point of banning torture if you also gag anyone who might have been tortured and deny them access to lawyers or the courts?

This is merely an exercise in political theater. But along the way McCain may have just step seriously on not just the President's shoes - but Karl Rove, the clear architect of the current"Democrats are weak" strategery.

The money quote however was this one:

"We have to hold the moral high ground. We're the nation that people look up to. We can't lower our standards simply because others do. We hold no respect for al-Qaeda. We don't think al-Qaeda will observe those Conventions - but we're going to be in other wars. And there's two reasons why all these retired military guys - who are not soft on terror or al Qaeda - are coming down vehemently against modifying the Geneva Conventions. 1) is the Moral High Ground. We are not like al Qaeda. There's a war on the battlefield and a psychological/idealogical war going on and 2) They are very worried about American forces who will fall into the hands of nations who will "reinterpret" or modify the Geneva conventions."

I would argue that there is a third reason that we shouldn't modify Geneva, because it can be considered a War Crime. And as I diaried on Dkos the other day, a country that sets and maintains a standard of treating it's captives well - has a greater chance for ultimate victory than one that mistreats them and provides further motivation for their opposition. This was made clear to us during WWII in Europe as Italian and German forces were far more likely to surrender to us, rather than the Russians and face their Gulags. And it was also made clear during the first Gulf War when most of Saddam's forces were more than eager to give up rather than be slaughtered. Now - partly because of Abu Ghraib and many other abuses such as Haditha and Fallujah - we face an enemy that would much rather die than be defeated and surrender.

However, the devil is in the details. Listening to Laura Flanders this weekend, she made the point that this isn't a case of three-card Monty with our rights. They aren't hiding under the House Bill, the Senate bill or the WhiteHouse Bill. All of these bills, like the Graham/Levin Amendment to the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005, essentially toss habeas corpus out the window.

We may formally acknowledge that we will not violate Geneva. Fine. But if persons such as Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, who was apparently kidnapped by the CIA in Italy and sent to Egypt where he claims to have been tortured until they discovered he knew nothing and was released - would have no legal recourse. Olbermann has speculated about what happens when Khallid Sheik Mohammad, who has now been transfered to Gitmo begins talking to the Red Cross -- but the answer to that is nothing. He has no ability to sue under Graham/Levin, and that is likely to remain true under any bill that exits Congress before the Election.

Further, there is still the issue of evidence gathered using coercive means being introduced secretly at trial - where they would not be subject to a fruits of the poison tree challenge and the fact that Bush continues to claim special super-dooper executive powers that allow him to fore-go and ignore laws which he disagrees with (such as FISA). So what exactly is there to stop him from continuing to ignore Geneva no matter what Congress decides?

In the end, all the bluster, strum and drang between Powell, McCain and Bush is likely to amount to big hill of nothing. Bush will - must - do everything in his ability to protect himself from possible War Crimes prosecution, and if he has to use this ex post facto method of covering his tracks while giving a tacit nod to the continuance of Geneva - he will. But that doesn't mean he'll abide by the law. In the meantime, McCain's words that those who oppose the President - ARE NOT SOFT ON AL-QAEDA - should not go unrepeated.

Say it with me now - John McCain is not soft on Al Qaeda. John Murtha is not soft on Al-Qaeda. Neither is John Kerry or Russ Feingold.

The big loser in all of this - is Karl Rove - as it appears that some Republicans have not only abandoned the President, they've chosen to completely undercut the insult politics that this Administration thrives on. How do they now repeat the kinds of attacks we've seen on decorated veterans - who happen to be Democrats- such as Murtha, Max Cleland or Kerry?

How can they continue to argue that these guys are "traitors" or "appeasers" when their standing shoulder to shoulder with Powell, McCain, Graham and Warner?

I don't think they can.

Less than 60 days to the election and Rove has already played his trump card and had it fail. The Republicans are going to lose Congress, probably both Houses. Rove probably knows this well, as does the RNC. Their next likely strategy is to let the Democrats take control -- and then play the "see, look at what they do once their in power" game and argue for retention of the Presidency in 2008 by a Republican - an "independent" Republican (with Jerry Falwell's hand in his pocket) like McCain. A strategy that might prove very effective if Democrats attempt to impeach George Bush without first laying the groundwork and making the need for such an action clear in the minds of the American people.

Although the ranting of John Yoo in the New York Times Post should make the grave danger of the Bush Administration to the fabric of our Democracy obvious, it still hasn't sunk in yet. Glenn Greenwald shines a spotlight on it:

Why is it even necessary to point out that the U.S. President does not have the power to violate laws which he thinks are "wrongheaded or obsolete," or that Presidents have no authority to disregard "wrongheaded or obsolete judicial decisions" (whatever that might mean)? And what permits a "law professor" to claim otherwise on the Op-Ed page of the NYT? Under this administration, there is no notion too radical or authoritarian to be off limits not only from being subject to debate, but from being implemented.

Just look at the things we're debating -- whether the U.S. Government can abduct and indefinitely imprison U.S. citizens without charges; whether we can use torture to interrogate people; whether our Government can eavesdrop on our private conversations without warrants; whether we can create secret prisons and keep people there out of sight and beyond the reach of any law or oversight; and whether the President can simply disregard long-standing constitutional limitations and duly enacted Congressional laws because he has deemed that doing so is necessary to "protect" us.

It should be obvious that the people who are "confused" are inside BushGov. The ones who have further "emboldened the enemy" with their tactics aren't Kerry or Murtha, it's Bush and Cheney with their torture fetish. Unfortunately, I don't believe most of the American people truly realize just how fucked-up we've really become over the last five years - or that they'll finally figure it out over the next two.

But one can always hope.

Vyan

Olbermann Special Comment

Keith Olbermann's Special Comment on Bush in the Rose Garden.

Blumenthal on How Bush Rules, Torture and the Quest for Unfetterred Power

.thinkGuest writting at Thinkprogress, Sidney Blumenthal has laid down the direction of his new book, How Bush Rules: Chronicals of Radical Regime.

“We do not torture,” President Bush has said time and again. But Bush has approved techniques that are defined as torture under the Geneva Conventions. In fact, he abrogated U.S. compliance with Article 3 of the Conventions that specifically prohibits torture. Indeed, his then White House counsel and now attorney general Alberto Gonzales contemptuously referred to the Conventions as “quaint.”

In the infamous memo of August 1, 2002 written by the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, the so-called “Bybee memo,” after Jay Bybee, its director and since appointed by Bush to a federal judgeship, the Conventions were shoved aside and the definition revised. Rather than the Conventions stipulations against “cruel, inhumane and degrading” treatment of prisoners and “outrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment,” the administration adopted new standards: “Physical pain amounting to torture must be equivalent to intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death.” The Bush administration’s new torture policy prompted the export of torture technique from Guantanamo to Abu Ghraib.

But the Bybee memo wasn't the start of BushGov's obsession with torture. As I've pointed out here, here and here - in early 2002, eight months prior to the Bybee memo request, then Attorney General Alberto Gonzales began the process to have terrorism detainees excluded from Geneva not because they didn't have valid status - Geneva applies to all prisons regardless of whether they are soldiers of a specific nation or not - but because Gonzales wished to avoid possible War Crimes prosecution of Adminstration Officials.

In recent weeks, Gonzales and Bush's attempts to end-run Geneva via Presidential decree have run upon rocky ground before the Supreme Court who flatly rejected the notion that Geneva did not apply. And if Geneva applies, so does the War Crimes Act of 1996. 18 USC § 2441

The debate has prompted former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and Secretary of State Powell to submit a stern letter to the president, saying that President's position on this throws our moral basis for the war on terror "into doubt."

But why does Bush continue to insist on these methods when many of the professionals in the field, including the FBI argue that they simply don't work.

The FBI forbids its agents from participating in any way in interrogation of detainees because of agents’ experience of what they considered torture. One agent in an email to bureau officials on August 2, 2004 described what he witnessed at the Guantanamo detainee prison camp: “On a couple of occasions, I entered interview rooms to find a detainee chained hand and foot in a fetal position to the floor, with no chair, food or water. Most times they had urinated or defecated on themselves, and had been left there for 18 to 24 hours or more.” In one case, he said, “The detainee was almost unconscious on the floor, with a pile of hair next to him. He had apparently been literally pulling his own hair out throughout the night.”

Bush claims are these methods that are “not torture” are necessary because they produce valuable intelligence on terrorism activities. Yet an FBI agent involved in the interrogations wrote on December 5, 2003, “These tactics have produced no intelligence of a threat neutralization nature to date and . . .”

The U.S. Army agrees emphatically. On September 6, the same day that Bush unveiled his new plan for torture and kangaroo courts, Lieutenant General John F. Kimmons, the Army’s Deputy Chief of Intelligence, in his presentation of the Army’s new field manual on interrogation that specifically encoded the Geneva Conventions rules against torture, said directly: “No good intelligence comes from abusive interrogation practices.”

Blumenthal sees this insistence on "Hard Charging" techniques as part of a larger reshaping of the Presidency by Bush and his followers. A radical resurgence of the Imperial Presidency of Richard Nixon and even more. ("If the President does it, it's legal...") The use of warrantless wiretaps against American citizens, unlimited detention without judicial oversight, habeous corpus or due process, torture - even murder have all occured under this Presidents watch, and worse - at his direction.

16 Months Ago Amnesty International called for the investigation, and if neccesary arrest and prosecution of George W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld and Alberto Gonzales for War Crimes. It's clear that with the paper trail that has been produced by the ACLU, any serious investigation of these issues would lead to grave consequences under 2441, including up to 5 years imprisonment and possible execution, for those who paved the way for these events to have occured. Even members of Congress if they approve the weakening and redefining of Geneva that the President has proposed.

Vyan

Impending E-Voting Debacle finally noticed by MSM

The Washington Post today posted a major article on November's looming E-Voting Calamity (Courtesy of ThereIsNoSpoon)

An overhaul in how states and localities record votes and administer elections since the Florida recount battle six years ago has created conditions that could trigger a repeat -- this time on a national scale -- of last week's Election Day debacle in the Maryland suburbs, election experts said.

In the Nov. 7 election, more than 80 percent of voters will use electronic voting machines, and a third of all precincts this year are using the technology for the first time. The changes are part of a national wave, prompted by the federal Help America Vote Act of 2002 and numerous revisions of state laws, that led to the replacement of outdated voting machines with computer-based electronic machines, along with centralized databases of registered voters and other steps to refine the administration of elections.

This story is finally starting to get some traction, now that the problems in Maryland's primary have been so well documented. The ripples of the Princeton Diebold video seem to be spreading and have already reached the shores of Faux News.

But in Maryland last Tuesday, a combination of human blunders and technological glitches caused long lines and delays in vote-counting. The problems, which followed ones earlier this year in Ohio, Illinois and several other states, have contributed to doubts among some experts about whether the new systems are reliable and whether election officials are adequately prepared to use them.

Ok, Now they're starting to have doubts? We've already had the Conyers Report(pdf) as well as RFK's stunning article in Rolling Stone. Which was followed up Fitrakis and Herbert. Rampant problems in the Billbray/Busby contest in San Diego. As well as various Whistleblowers, William Singer, Ion Sancho, and Steven Heller.

The fact that Maryland had these problems, shows the strength of the e-voting lobby, since Maryland House had voted to kick Diebold out and switched back to paper-ballots in March of this year.

Diebold, the electronic voting machine maker, suffered another sharp setback recently, when Maryland's House of Delegates voted 137-to-0 to drop its machines and switch to paper ballots. The vote came in the same week that Texas held elections marred by electronic voting troubles. Maryland's State Senate should join the House in voting to discontinue the use of the Diebold machines, and other states should follow Maryland's lead.

Maryland was one of the first states to embrace Diebold. But Maryland voters and elected officials have grown increasingly disenchanted as evidence has mounted that the machines cannot be trusted. In 2004, security experts from RABA Technologies told the state legislature that they had been able to hack into the machines in a way that would make it possible to steal an election. Senator Barbara Mikulski, a Democrat, informed the State Board of Elections in 2004 that voters had complained to her that machines had mysteriously omitted the Senate race.

Unfortuately this intiative by the Maryland House ultimately failed. Back to the Wapo.

In a polarized political climate, in which elections are routinely marked by litigation and allegations of incompetent administration or outright tampering, some worry that voting problems could cast a Florida-style shadow over this fall's midterm elections.

"We could see that control of Congress is going to be decided by races in recount situations that might not be determined for several weeks," said Paul S. DeGregorio, chairman of the federal Election Assistance Commission, although he added that he does not expect problems of this magnitude.

"It's hard to put a factor on how ill-prepared we are," said former Ohio governor Richard F. Celeste, a Democrat who recently co-chaired a study of new machines with Republican Richard L. Thornburgh, former governor of Pennsylvania, for the National Research Council. They advised local election officials to prepare backup plans for November.

"What we know is, these technologies require significant testing and debugging to make them work," added Celeste, now president of Colorado College. "Our concern -- particularly as we look to the November election, when there is a lot of pressure on -- is that election officials consider what kinds of fallbacks they can put in place."

It seems that this issue is suddenly, almost oddly, beginning to reach critical mass -- but the question remains, can the problems be corrected and/or alternatives put in place in time to ensure a fair and accurate election this November. And if not, and either the Republicans retain control of the House, or the Democrats take over either House of Congress - as they care currently projected to do - will anyone be able to trust the results? How can you have an effective Democracy if you can't trust the vote?

Answer: You Can't!

Vyan

New Songs Added to Station

Now Playing Truth2Power Radio

Super 8 - Here I go Again
Queens of the Stone Age - No One Knows
Flesh - Who can Love You
Evanescense - Bring me to Life
Extreme - Cynical Fuck
Dokken - Deep Waters
Audioslave - Cochise
Isley Bros - Take me to the Next Phase
Bodycount - Strippers
Rage Against the Machine - Street Fighting Man
Queensryche - Best I Can
30 Seconds to Mars -Edge of the Earth
Bulletboys - Owed to Joe
The Gap Band - Dropped a Bomb on Me
Cranberries - Linger
Magni - Heroes, Starman, Fire

AP Photographer "Disappeared" by U.S. Military

Years ago, well not that many, but a couple - I used to post on this newsgroup from my then hometown Sacramento on political issues of the day. We had unabashed lefties, centrists and conservatives all going at it, but eventually the rancor grew too biting. Everyone was speaking past each other - so just before the 2004 election I left. But before that I do recall one specific prediction... the Administration will eventually "Disappear" not just terrorists, but innocent civilians and U.S. citizens.

Arguably the first of these was Jose Padilla, who was held secretly for about a month until BushGov decided they needed a bump in the news cycle. Now comes Bilal Hussein, an AP Photographer who has been held in Iraq - without charges - for the last five months.

The U.S. military in Iraq has imprisoned an Associated Press photographer for five months, accusing him of being a security threat but never filing charges or permitting a public hearing.

Military officials said Bilal Hussein, an Iraqi citizen, was being held for "imperative reasons of security" under United Nations resolutions. AP executives said the news cooperative's review of Hussein's work did not find anything to indicate inappropriate contact with insurgents, and any evidence against him should be brought to the Iraqi criminal justice system.

Hussein, 35, is a native of Fallujah who began work for the AP in September 2004. He photographed events in Fallujah and Ramadi until he was detained on April 12 of this year.

Hussein is one of an estimated 14,000 people detained by the U.S. military worldwide - 13,000 of them in Iraq. They are held in limbo where few are ever charged with a specific crime or given a chance before any court or tribunal to argue for their freedom.

In Hussein's case, the military has not provided any concrete evidence to back up the vague allegations they have raised about him, Curley and other AP executives said.

The military said Hussein was captured with two insurgents, including Hamid Hamad Motib, an alleged leader of al-Qaida in Iraq. "He has close relationships with persons known to be responsible for kidnappings, smuggling, improvised explosive device (IED) attacks and other attacks on coalition forces," according to a May 7 e-mail from U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Jack Gardner, who oversees all coalition detainees in Iraq.

"The information available establishes that he has relationships with insurgents and is afforded access to insurgent activities outside the normal scope afforded to journalists conducting legitimate activities," Gardner wrote to AP International Editor John Daniszewski.

Hussein proclaims his innocence, according to his Iraqi lawyer, Badie Arief Izzat, and believes he has been unfairly targeted because his photos from Ramadi and Fallujah were deemed unwelcome by the coalition forces.

This is what America has become, a country that foregoes due process out of expediency? This is what Bush wishes the entire world emulate? The sad part is - they just might.

But what's worse is that Hussein may be completely innocent according to the AP's own investigation, not only that - he may be a hero.

AP officials emphasized the military has not provided the company concrete evidence of its claims against Bilal Hussein, or provided him a chance to offer a defense.

"He's a Sunni Arab from a tribe in that area. I'm sure he does know some nasty people. But is he a participant in the insurgency? I don't think that's been proven," Daniszewski said.

Information provided to the AP by the military to support the continued detention hasn't withstood scrutiny, when it could be checked, Daniszewski said.

For example, he said, the AP had been told that Hussein was involved with the kidnapping of two Arab journalists in Ramadi.

But those journalists, tracked down by the AP, said Hussein had helped them after they were released by their captors without money or a vehicle in a dangerous part of Ramadi. After a journalist acquaintance put them in touch with Hussein, the photographer picked them up, gave them shelter and helped get them out of town, they said.

The journalists said they had never been contacted by multinational forces for their account.

Vyan

Electronic Voting Demo on Fox News

Stop George from Dailykos, who posted the previous Princeton Video of a Diebold voting machine being hacked, has just posted another video of the very same Princeton people demonstrating how that very same machine can be fooled on Fox and Friends - and even they got it.

When you watch the video you will discover that, although not a lot of time is spent discussing this serious issue -- Professor Felten clearly shows the right-wingers that they have a lot to be concerned about. The bubble-head hosts even gasped and seemed to understand the seriousness of this demonstration.

And so, I think we have almost achieved a pivotal point in this whole saga of e-voting in America. RFK jr. et al's massive lawsuit against the e-voting companies (which they say will curl your toes) is expected to be front-page news within the next couple of weeks. And now, this issue is starting to gain wide political exposure on such programs as Lou Dobbs and Fox News. Yes, friends -- I have a feeling this story is going to go critical mass.

Watch and share, even with all your wingnut friends.

Vyan