British High Court judges are expected to rule this week on whether a document by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency can be publicly disclosed, thus opening the courthouse door to a lawsuit charging that the British government was complicit in facilitating the rendition of a British resident by the CIA, which tortured and secretly imprisoned …
Continue reading “Britain Tries to Block CIA Rendition Case”
The calls currently heard for an independent commission to investigate America’s use of torture in George Bush’s war on terror usually argue that a congressional investigation, or a straightforward criminal investigation under the authority of the Department of Justice, would become so politicized, or be so widely subjected to partisan attack, as to be hopelessly …
Continue reading “The Wrong Argument Over Torture”
At least three dozen detainees who were held in the CIA’s secret prisons overseas appear to be missing – and efforts by human rights organizations to track their whereabouts have been unsuccessful. The story of these "ghost prisoners" was comprehensively documented last week by Pro Publica, an online investigative journalism group. In September 2007, Michael …
Continue reading “Dozens of CIA ‘Ghost Prisoners’ Missing”
Ray McGovern on Obama’s Faustian bargain
Memos are not enough, reports William Fisher
The Justice Department Thursday released four secret memos used by the George W. Bush administration to justify torture. The memos, produced by the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), provided the legal framework for the CIA’s use of waterboarding and other illegal interrogation methods that violate domestic and international law. The disclosures were made …
Continue reading “Struggle Brews Over ‘Torture Memos’ Immunity” 
