If given a choice between, on the one hand, ensuring the safety of your mother, your children, your grandmother, or any of your neighbors or fellow citizens and on the other hand, using the classification system to cover up evidence of crimes to include torture, what would your government choose? According to a report last week in the Guardian, your mother, grandmother and kids are on their own.
The issue involves Binyam Mohamed, an Ethiopian national who was held at the U.S. detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba from 2004 to 2009. Mohamed claims he was captured and transported under the our government's extraordinary rendition program. Before his transfer to Guantanamo Bay, Mohamed states that he was incarcerated in prisons in Pakistan, Morocco and Afghanistan, and that while in Morocco, interrogators tortured him by using scalpels or razor blades to repeatedly cut his penis and chest.
Mohamed as been at the center of several extraordinary claims of secrecy by our government. In 2007, the ACLU filed a federal lawsuit against Jeppesen DataPlan, Inc., a subsidiary of Boeing Company, on behalf of five victims of the United States government's unlawful "extraordinary rendition" program. The suit (Mohamed et al. v Jeppesen Dataplan, Inc.) charges that Jeppesen knowingly participated by providing critical flight planning and logistical support services to aircraft and crews used by the CIA to forcibly disappear Mohamed and four other plaintiffs to detention and interrogation. Shortly after the suit was filed, the government intervened and inappropriately asserted the "state secrets privilege," claiming further litigation would undermine national security interests, even though much of the evidence needed to try the case was already available to the public.
As recently as April 2009, the Obama administration reaffirmed its support of the Bush administration's extraordinarily broad and sweeping claim of the "state secrets privilege" in this case. Nonetheless, in April 2009, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a lower court dismissal of the case, ruling that the government must invoke the state secrets privilege with respect to specific evidence, not to dismiss the entire suit.
In the second case involving excessive claims of government secrecy, in July 2008, Mohamed's lawyers filed a petition in a United Kingdom (UK) court that the British Foreign Office should be compelled to turn over evidence in its possession relating to Mohamed's allegations on torture. On August 21, 2008, the High Court of the UK found in Mohamed's favor, ruling that the Foreign Office should disclose the material. Although the documents were disclosed to Mohamed's legal counsel as ordered, they were not made public and a later hearing by the High Court found in the favor of the UK Foreign Secretary that he not be compelled to publicly release them. The High Court found that, based upon the Foreign Secretary's representations that release would harm the UK's special intelligence relationship with the U.S., it would not be in the public interest to compel their release.
Which brings us to last week's Guardian article which states that in connection with Mohamed's suit that evidence of his torture be made public:
The issue involves Binyam Mohamed, an Ethiopian national who was held at the U.S. detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba from 2004 to 2009. Mohamed claims he was captured and transported under the our government's extraordinary rendition program. Before his transfer to Guantanamo Bay, Mohamed states that he was incarcerated in prisons in Pakistan, Morocco and Afghanistan, and that while in Morocco, interrogators tortured him by using scalpels or razor blades to repeatedly cut his penis and chest.
Mohamed as been at the center of several extraordinary claims of secrecy by our government. In 2007, the ACLU filed a federal lawsuit against Jeppesen DataPlan, Inc., a subsidiary of Boeing Company, on behalf of five victims of the United States government's unlawful "extraordinary rendition" program. The suit (Mohamed et al. v Jeppesen Dataplan, Inc.) charges that Jeppesen knowingly participated by providing critical flight planning and logistical support services to aircraft and crews used by the CIA to forcibly disappear Mohamed and four other plaintiffs to detention and interrogation. Shortly after the suit was filed, the government intervened and inappropriately asserted the "state secrets privilege," claiming further litigation would undermine national security interests, even though much of the evidence needed to try the case was already available to the public.
As recently as April 2009, the Obama administration reaffirmed its support of the Bush administration's extraordinarily broad and sweeping claim of the "state secrets privilege" in this case. Nonetheless, in April 2009, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a lower court dismissal of the case, ruling that the government must invoke the state secrets privilege with respect to specific evidence, not to dismiss the entire suit.
In the second case involving excessive claims of government secrecy, in July 2008, Mohamed's lawyers filed a petition in a United Kingdom (UK) court that the British Foreign Office should be compelled to turn over evidence in its possession relating to Mohamed's allegations on torture. On August 21, 2008, the High Court of the UK found in Mohamed's favor, ruling that the Foreign Office should disclose the material. Although the documents were disclosed to Mohamed's legal counsel as ordered, they were not made public and a later hearing by the High Court found in the favor of the UK Foreign Secretary that he not be compelled to publicly release them. The High Court found that, based upon the Foreign Secretary's representations that release would harm the UK's special intelligence relationship with the U.S., it would not be in the public interest to compel their release.
Which brings us to last week's Guardian article which states that in connection with Mohamed's suit that evidence of his torture be made public:
In a written statement proposing a gagging order, (UK Foreign Secretary) Miliband told the court that (Secretary of State Hillary Clinton) "indicated" that the disclosure of CIA evidence "would affect intelligence sharing". Pressed repeatedly by the judges on the claim yesterday, Karen Steyn, Miliband's counsel, insisted that Clinton was indeed saying that if the seven-paragraph summary of CIA material was disclosed, the US would "reassess" its intelligence relationship with the UK, a move that "would put lives at risk".
So there you have it. Note that the principle at stake from the perspective of both the U.S. and UK governments is not "intelligence giving" but "intelligence sharing." In an "intelligence sharing" relationship, all partners receive information of relatively equal import. According to the UK Foreign Secretary, our country's Secretary of State has indicated that our government is willing to run the risk of forsaking the receipt by the U.S. of critical intelligence from the UK government, an act which conceivably would put all Americans at increased risk. Why?
There are only two credible answers.
First, the U.S. government is willing to go to any length to cover-up illegal acts by our government.
Second, our government will go to any length, to include placing your mother and every other American at increased risk simply to defend the principle of government secrecy. There is one and only one way that that the disclosure of CIA evidence would, as indicated by Clinton, "affect intelligence sharing" and cause the U.S. to "reassess" its intelligence relationship with the UK. Such a consequence could only occur if our government made the deliberate decision to allow it to happen. Our government could just as easily make a deliberate choice not to allow the disclosure of US intelligence in this case to affect the intelligence sharing between the U.S. and UK. Nonetheless, our government has clearly made the former choice, even when given the opportunity to clarify its position. This choice should be as inexplicable to every American as it is to the UK High Court which wrote:
There are only two credible answers.
First, the U.S. government is willing to go to any length to cover-up illegal acts by our government.
Second, our government will go to any length, to include placing your mother and every other American at increased risk simply to defend the principle of government secrecy. There is one and only one way that that the disclosure of CIA evidence would, as indicated by Clinton, "affect intelligence sharing" and cause the U.S. to "reassess" its intelligence relationship with the UK. Such a consequence could only occur if our government made the deliberate decision to allow it to happen. Our government could just as easily make a deliberate choice not to allow the disclosure of US intelligence in this case to affect the intelligence sharing between the U.S. and UK. Nonetheless, our government has clearly made the former choice, even when given the opportunity to clarify its position. This choice should be as inexplicable to every American as it is to the UK High Court which wrote:
Moreover, in the light of the long history of the common law and democracy which we share with the United States, it was, in our view difficult to conceive that a democratically elected and accountable government could possibly have any rational objection to placing into the public domain such a summary of what its own officials reported as to how a detainee was treated by them and which made no disclosure of sensitive intelligence matters. Indeed we did not consider that a democracy governed by the rule of law would expect a court in another democracy to suppress a summary of the evidence contained in reports by its own officials or officials of another State where the evidence was relevant to allegations of torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, politically embarrassing though it might be.
To paraphrase Alberto Gonzales, our former Attorney General, it is interesting to note that at least a court in another land maintains the "quaint" notion of accountability in a democracy. In the meantime Ma, here in the U.S. of A., you're on your own.
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