[lit-ideas] Re: Nuclear Responsibility and Iran
- From: Robert Paul <rpaul@xxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 09 Mar 2007 12:00:19 -0800
Eric writes
Robert: I mention this because while then we had internment, now we
have Guantanamo, 'special rendition,' and warrantless spying.
You don't accept this disconnect do you, Robert? Certainly one can be
depressed by this state of affairs, but shouldn't one be depressed by
the geopolitical and technological circumstances that make this needed
and possible, rather than by a government willing to carry it out?.
I don't accept that many of these measures are needed or that the same
results could not have been achieved by more, ah, Constitutional
means. I'm not sure what you mean when you say that 'geographical and
technological circumstances' have made this possible. Technology has
has made things possible but this does not speak to the morality or
the legality of some of the things it has made possible. I assume it
could be used for good or ill. I'm not depressed that we now have an
administration that is 'willing to carry it out.' I'm enraged by it.
Afghan battlefield detainees and al-Qaeda terrorists at Gitmo are not
comparable to the Japanese-Americans detained by FDR.
Right. And that was exactly my point, although I may have made it
clumsily. They are not comparable, and the far-right's dismissal of
this administrations practices as being no worse than what had been
done before are absurd. I think you're implying...what, exactly? That
the Japanese Americans who were interned by FDR posed no real threat,
while the al-Quaeda terrorists at Guantanamo do, and so of course they
were and are treated differently?
This sounds like the explanation one would give to a child. The
assumption that everyone held incommunicado, without trial, and
without being charged with any sort of crime (designating someone as a
'terrorist' isn't charging them with anything; it's simply classifying
them) is absurd. You can't lock people up for being terrorists without
demonstrating that they're terrorists. And this the Administration
admittedly has not done. Many people are held there on spec, as it
were. I don't really want to discuss Guantanamo at length just now
though.
Nor is special rendition anything new to the Bush Administration or
even to the Clinton Administration.
I now see this and I thank you for pointing out especially the CIA's
use of it under Clinton. This adminstration denies that any such thing
goes on, of course. (Condi Rice has said she's never heard of it.) But
that what the Bush Administration is doing is not new doesn't make it
any less odious.
Which leaves warrantless spying. If you mean warrantless phone taps,
they have been conducted since the Transatlantic cable was put in
place, before you were born. If you mean overall surveillance, also not
a new thing, that has become subject to new judicial review. (Senate
Bill 2453, amending the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.)
Unrestricted taps on international communications were reigned a bit
after some very tardy court challenges, and a suit against AT&T. The
courts did for the most part allow them to continue but handed out
various fig leaves.
Again, you've provided interesting references. FISA has been amended
over the years, and most recently (as far as I know) by SB 2453. Those
interested in what SB 2453 was meant to do and in part did might want to
look at
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d109:SN02453:@@@D&summ2=m&;
I've taken up too much time already.
Robert Paul
The Reed Institute
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