ACLU hits Obama hard over torture controversies
Published: June 12, 2009
Updated 5 months ago
The American Civil Liberties Union had strong words on Friday for the Obama administration’s efforts to block the release of torture photos and its attempts to end a lawsuit over extraordinary rendition.
The ACLU criticized the White House’s deal with Congress, struck on Thursday, which eliminated a provision in a military financing bill that would have blocked the release of torture photos — but only after President Barack Obama promised to “use every legal and administrative remedy” available to keep the photos from the public.
“Keeping the photos secret while letting the high level perpetrators off the hook cannot be tolerated if we are to get an America we can be proud of again,” said Anthony Romero, executive director of the ACLU. ”This information is necessary to create an accurate historical record and to force an increasingly recalcitrant Justice Department to undertake a criminal investigation of those who authorized and implemented the Bush administration’s torture program.”
Meanwhile, the U.S. Justice Department asked a federal appeals court on Friday to block a lawsuit brought by five victims of the U.S. government’s extraordinary rendition program. Five men, who claim they were kidnapped and tortured for information, are suing Boeing subsidiary Jeppesen DataPlan over its role in transferring them to overseas facilities.
“The Obama administration has now fully embraced the Bush administration’s shameful effort to immunize torturers and their enablers from any legal consequences for their actions,” said Ben Wizner, an ACLU lawyer representing the five men, in a press release. “The CIA’s rendition and torture program is not a ’state secret;’ it’s an international scandal. If the Obama administration has its way, no torture victim will ever have his day in court, and future administrations will be free to pursue torture policies without any fear of liability.”
The lawsuit stirred controversy on both sides of the Atlanic Ocean last month, when the Obama administration threatened to cut Britain off from sensitive information if the U.K. government released information regarding Binyam Mohamed, a resident of Britain and one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit.
Some commentators have speculated that the Obama administration’s reluctance to allow the suit to go forward may be the result of Boeing’s influence in Washington.
The full text of the ACLU’s press release on the rendition trial can be found here.
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Obama seems to have cut some kind of a deal with Bushco and the Israelis. Or maybe, he is just trying to stay clear of their assasins. It does seem that Obamas promises seem to happen in spite of his best efforts to stop them. I’d wouldn’t be a bit surprised if the pics. and the report, don’t get censored in spite of his best efforts. Wink, wink. I’ve noticed that Obama works in mysterious ways. He’s sure no grand stander like Chimpy but his proposals seem to become reality, even if he takes no credit for it. I like his style.
Obama seems to have cut some kind of a deal with Bushco and the Israelis.
—————————————–
Ya think.
And just what is the point of teaching Constitutional Law if the teacher will not uphold the Constitution? Oh, that’s right, you can get paid for giving it lip service. That is precisely what the Bush Crime Family did when they said,
“We don’t torture”, as they tortured. President Obama, you can join Bush, et. al. as war criminals. Is this what you are, more of the same Washington CYA Club?
Well why one anyone think that messiah Obushma would uphold the US Constitution in the first place, when he voted to shred the US Constitution as a senator? Two examples: his votes for FISA and for the reauthorization of the USA Patriot Act. This man doesn’t give a damn about the US Constitution.
The constitutional oath that he took for president was just a waste of time. It was purely symbolic and ceremonial.
Your racism is showing through. It’s irrelevant and provides nothing but vexed response.
Racism? LOL. What drugs are you on? Or did you mean to respond to someone else?
If your comment was directed at me:
People like you always resort to bringing up charges of racism and sexism and anything else, rather than dealing with the topic. The topic is messiah Obushma and the US Constitution which has NOTHING to do with racism, fool.
Are you referring to my use of the word “messiah” by chance? Many Obamabots see Obama as some messiah. Their lord and savior, which is why I and other progressives use the term. But that has NOTHING to do with racism. It has to do with voters being in denial and wanting some millionaire who charades as a politician to save them. It ain’t going to happen.
The “change” must come from the people. Not some slick millionaire who poses as a politician for suckers to vote for.
tbrim, that’s a crock of shit. There is not a racist word in that post. Keep your personal problems to yourself.
Let transparency be the hallmark of my presidency.
_Barack Obama
B U L L S H I T!!!
See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAaQNACwaLw
(((3)))
http://www.theominousparallels.blogspot.com
I agree with mcartri
“And just what is the point of teaching Constitutional Law if the teacher will not uphold the Constitution?”
I am beginning to wonder if Obama really was a Constitutional Law Professor?
If his failure to act to get to the truth
make you an angry voter
Take action
SIGN THE PETITION
To Prosecute Them For Torture
http://ANGRYVOTERS.ORG
Over 250,000 have signed
Join them and call yourself a Patriot
.
The one problem with your petition is that the congress doesn’t give a damn what we think. We are not their owners. They listen to their corporate and military industrial complex owners. Period.
Since 2000, they have consistently ignored petitions, phone calls, faxes, protests, visits, e-mails. You don’t really expect one group of war criminals with a D behind their name to investigate the group of war criminals with a R behind their name with whom the D group served as accomplices, do you? If you do, you’re delusional.
They are all in on it (except for Kucinich) so nothing of substance will happen with any of this stuff.
Shame that Obama has reneged on something so important.
imsam: “Well why one anyone think that messiah Obushma would uphold the US Constitution in the first place, when he voted to shred the US Constitution as a senator? Two examples: his votes for FISA and for the reauthorization of the USA Patriot Act. This man doesn’t give a damn about the US Constitution.”
For starters, one thing you fail to mention is who started those pieces of legislation, who pushed for them, and who bullied opposition party members into voting that way. Nobody wanted to end up like Paul Wellstone. Republicans were in power when 9/11 happened, and democrats crossed the aisle during the crisis. A shame that Republicans would rather destroy their party completely than do the same now, but that’s another debate.
You should also remember that the Patriot Act, a 334 page document, was not available for review prior to being voted on. And again, national emergency. Not that that excuses the people who put that unconstitutional piece of trash in front of an over-trusting congress.
I love how neo-cons only tell part of the story. How those reptiles can even look at themselves in the mirror is beyond me.
I love how “Dem Team” partisans choose to live in thick denial about their own parasite war criminals.
War criminal and Bush-accomplice Pelosi comes to mind with her taking “impeachment off the table.”
For messiah Obushma, he’s only “looking forward” and refusing to see anything that happened from 911 to present. They are all part of the same mafia/syndicate.
You referred to “opposition party members.” They are not an “opposition party.” You just want to believe that lie as if there’s a difference between the two. The “Dem Team” is the accomplice/enabling party for the “Repug Team” and has been since at least 2000.
D = R.
They BOTH are in wars/occupations that they don’t need to be in. Why are we still in Iraq? No WMDs.
Your pabulum about “no one want to end up like Wellstone,” then why the hell did they get into this job in the first place and why do they STAY in there if there are so very afraid. That is just BS.
Why do you feel the need to make excuses for multi-millionaires war criminal parasites who charade as politicians and who don’t give a damn about you?
So far, what has messiah Obushma done for us? NOTHING POSITIVE.
The so-called “Dems” serving as accomplices to the Bush Crime Family is about the $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$. Not any of the bunk you talked about.
Obama knows the Constitution well. Ignorance isn’t his problem. Patriotism is his problem.
We hoped he would be a Patriot. But it is clear now that he has turned out to be just another tool of the Plutocracy; an economic royalist at his core.
Whatever faith I had in Obama has gone into the garbage can along with his bumper sticker.
Read this and pay close attention to the date…
Full press pool report:
Pool report #5
November 10, 2008
Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport
President Bush escorted President-elect Obama out of the Oval Office and walked him to down to the motorcade waiting on the south driveway.
(Josh Bolten separately escorted John Podesta to a car much further back in the motorcade.)
As they walked down the path, the president could be seen pointing things out to his soon-to-be successor.
They did not linger at the car and the motorcade took off at 3:45 p.m.
Michelle Obama left before her husband for her own separate schedule in Washington for the remainder of the day and will be traveling separately back to Chicago later tonight.
We’re not being told what she will be doing in her extra time here, so we leave it to your imagination and reportorial instincts.
The motorcade encountered crowds of people gathered outside the White House as it made its way off campus and headed toward Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.
After arriving, President-elect Obama went into a previously unannounced “private” meeting at the airport’s Fire Station 301.
And how is this relevant to ending torture?
Trying to keep a lid on this can of worms is only going to spew out the contents… and create a lot of fishbait.
Boeing and others will buy the silence of those tortured.
Where will the money come from?
Perhaps from the almost ONE MILLION veterans backlogged in their fight for benefits from the country that just ’saluted’ them:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/6/11/741250/-Veterans-claims-approach-one-million-delayed-or-on-appeal
Veterans: please quit killing Yourselves, and take aim where it might do some good.
Before it was decided that the stolen 2000 election went to Bush I distincly remember something very fascinating occurring. The CIA, who are incidentally a foreign operating entity, met with both Gore and Bush, This struck me as very odd. The thought crossed my mind that these clandestine meetings were to inform both men who is really running things in America. Bush’s campaign promises, just like Obamas (who incidentally met with the CIA also) went to shit!
It is my fact based opinion that they were representing the Banksters. I firmly believe that the Banksters run both parties through the CFR and Federal Reserve Banking system. That said I fear that until we extricate these hoodlums from running our leaders, we will NEVER get back to square 1.
No matter what you think of the form of government our founders left for us, which I think if followed is impressive, if our leaders refuse to heed the law of the land now, what would make anyone think they would ANY form.
Personally, I am hard pressed to imagine a better setup than ours provided it was, unlike now, adhered to. I’d really love to see what we would have if all laws that did not follow the Constitution and Bill of Rights (which is most of them) were eradicated and only those which follow in the simplest form (as opposed to the “interpreted by our courts form) our law of our land.
Reagan wanted them to tear down the wall. I want us to tear down the Banksters!
Think of the United States of America as a computer…and dangerous right-wing fanatics as malware.
Or think of the MSM as a computer…and Faux News and the Washington Times as both malware and scareware.
Or think of the Bush/Cheney administration as a computer…with what they did to the executive branch and so many federal agencies (malware), what they did before starting the Iraq War, along with their repeated invocation of 9/11 (scareware) and the illegal wiretapping of U.S. citizens and bypassing of FISA (spyware).
And, of course, when the Bush/Cheney administration decided to trash over two hundred years of American tradition, the Geneva Conventions and the International Convention Against Torture, as well as numerous federal anti-torture statutes, they created a new category…tortureware.
And who were these programmers who decided to reprogram America to fit their warped and twisted conservative vision, the neo-con Republicans with the help of both lapdog Republicans and conservative DLC Blue Dog Democrats…so the header over the Bush/Cheney administration’s malware, scareware, spyware and tortureware activities should be neoconware, a really viral and often lethal “control” program.
Anyone have an anti-virus program that will help? Can we de-bug our democracy before it’s too late, before more right-wingers go berserk and kill even more innocent citizens? Has the Republican Party and conservatives in general become so consumed and compromised by scareware, malware, tortureware and spyware that they are self-erasing before our very eyes? Will the culture of corruption, lies and greed Republican Party crash the computer (our country, our beloved democracy), just as they’ve worked so hard to crash our economy???
And unfortunately, President Obama, or at least some of the conservative-types in his administration, believe that erecting “firewalls,” in an attempt to keep hidden what was done in our name during the Bush/Cheney years, is a good idea. Nope. As a democracy we need a complete “computer scan” to root out all the malware, scareware, spyware and tortureware that the previous administration similarly tried to keep hidden. Otherwise, our computer (our democracy) will stay infected, with Trojan Horse conservative malware remaining in place, waiting to go off again.
This is great. No Obama BOTs defending the indefensible this time.
Looks to me like the “military-industrial” complex trumps our Constitution once more.
If Obama wants to continue this torture info. merry-go-round thats his choice but I guarantee all this information will be exposed eventually - Obama or no Obama - even if it takes an attempt similar to the Petagon Papers to do it. Exposing the Govt. i.e. Bush crimes should be paramount and the priority now. If Obama chooses to go down with Bush - so be it.