Rachel Maddow, stating the facts about the Sotomayor GOP lies

Spin on Sotomayor
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/#30951352

A Name Game
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/#30951606

Scarying up money
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/#30951542

The GOP lie revealed about reverse racism!!!!

WASHINGTON — In 2001, Sonia Sotomayor, an appeals court judge, gave a speech declaring that the ethnicity and sex of a judge “may and will make a difference in our judging.”

In her speech, Judge Sotomayor questioned the famous notion — often invoked by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and her retired Supreme Court colleague, Sandra Day O’Connor — that a wise old man and a wise old woman would reach the same conclusion when deciding cases.

“I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life,” said Judge Sotomayor,

Her remarks, at the annual Judge Mario G. Olmos Law and Cultural Diversity Lecture at the University of California, Berkeley,Lecture: ‘A Latina Judge’s Voice’

The following is the text of the Judge Mario G. Olmos Memorial Lecture in 2001, delivered at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law, by appeals court judge Sonia Sotomayor. It was published in the Spring 2002 issue of Berkeley La Raza Law Journal, a symposium issue entitled "Raising the Bar: Latino and Latina Presence in the Judiciary and the Struggle for Representation," and it is reproduced here with permission from the journal.

"A Latina Judge's Voice"

By Sonia Sotomayor

Judge Reynoso, thank you for that lovely introduction. I am humbled to be speaking behind a man who has contributed so much to the Hispanic community. I am also grateful to have such kind words said about me.

I am delighted to be here. It is nice to escape my hometown for just a little bit. It is also nice to say hello to old friends who are in the audience, to rekindle contact with old acquaintances and to make new friends among those of you in the audience. It is particularly heart warming to me to be attending a conference to which I was invited by a Latina law school friend, Rachel Moran, who is now an accomplished and widely respected legal scholar. I warn Latinos in this room: Latinas are making a lot of progress in the old-boy network.

I am also deeply honored to have been asked to deliver the annual Judge Mario G. Olmos lecture. I am joining a remarkable group of prior speakers who have given this lecture. I hope what I speak about today continues to promote the legacy of that man whose commitment to public service and abiding dedication to promoting equality and justice for all people inspired this memorial lecture and the conference that will follow. I thank Judge Olmos' widow Mary Louise's family, her son and the judge's many friends for hosting me. And for the privilege you have bestowed on me in honoring the memory of a very special person. If I and the many people of this conference can accomplish a fraction of what Judge Olmos did in his short but extraordinary life we and our respective communities will be infinitely better.

I intend tonight to touch upon the themes that this conference will be discussing this weekend and to talk to you about my Latina identity, where it came from, and the influence I perceive it has on my presence on the bench.

Who am I? I am a "Newyorkrican." For those of you on the West Coast who do not know what that term means: I am a born and bred New Yorker of Puerto Rican-born parents who came to the states during World War II.

Like many other immigrants to this great land, my parents came because of poverty and to attempt to find and secure a better life for themselves and the family that they hoped to have. They largely succeeded. For that, my brother and I are very grateful. The story of that success is what made me and what makes me the Latina that I am. The Latina side of my identity was forged and closely nurtured by my family through our shared experiences and traditions.

For me, a very special part of my being Latina is the mucho platos de arroz, gandoles y pernir - rice, beans and pork - that I have eaten at countless family holidays and special events. My Latina identity also includes, because of my particularly adventurous taste buds, morcilla, -- pig intestines, patitas de cerdo con garbanzo -- pigs' feet with beans, and la lengua y orejas de cuchifrito, pigs' tongue and ears. I bet the Mexican-Americans in this room are thinking that Puerto Ricans have unusual food tastes. Some of us, like me, do. Part of my Latina identity is the sound of merengue at all our family parties and the heart wrenching Spanish love songs that we enjoy. It is the memory of Saturday afternoon at the movies with my aunt and cousins watching Cantinflas, who is not Puerto Rican, but who was an icon Spanish comedian on par with Abbot and Costello of my generation. My Latina soul was nourished as I visited and played at my grandmother's house with my cousins and extended family. They were my friends as I grew up. Being a Latina child was watching the adults playing dominos on Saturday night and us kids playing loteria, bingo, with my grandmother calling out the numbers which we marked on our cards with chick peas.

Now, does any one of these things make me a Latina? Obviously not because each of our Carribean and Latin American communities has their own unique food and different traditions at the holidays. I only learned about tacos in college from my Mexican-American roommate. Being a Latina in America also does not mean speaking Spanish. I happen to speak it fairly well. But my brother, only three years younger, like too many of us educated here, barely speaks it. Most of us born and bred here, speak it very poorly.

If I had pursued my career in my undergraduate history major, I would likely provide you with a very academic description of what being a Latino or Latina means. For example, I could define Latinos as those peoples and cultures populated or colonized by Spain who maintained or adopted Spanish or Spanish Creole as their language of communication. You can tell that I have been very well educated. That antiseptic description however, does not really explain the appeal of morcilla - pig's intestine - to an American born child. It does not provide an adequate explanation of why individuals like us, many of whom are born in this completely different American culture, still identify so strongly with those communities in which our parents were born and raised.

America has a deeply confused image of itself that is in perpetual tension. We are a nation that takes pride in our ethnic diversity, recognizing its importance in shaping our society and in adding richness to its existence. Yet, we simultaneously insist that we can and must function and live in a race and color-blind way that ignore these very differences that in other contexts we laud. That tension between "the melting pot and the salad bowl" -- a recently popular metaphor used to described New York's diversity - is being hotly debated today in national discussions about affirmative action. Many of us struggle with this tension and attempt to maintain and promote our cultural and ethnic identities in a society that is often ambivalent about how to deal with its differences. In this time of great debate we must remember that it is not political struggles that create a Latino or Latina identity. I became a Latina by the way I love and the way I live my life. My family showed me by their example how wonderful and vibrant life is and how wonderful and magical it is to have a Latina soul. They taught me to love being a Puerto Riqueña and to love America and value its lesson that great things could be achieved if one works hard for it. But achieving success here is no easy accomplishment for Latinos or Latinas, and although that struggle did not and does not create a Latina identity, it does inspire how I live my life.

I was born in the year 1954. That year was the fateful year in which Brown v. Board of Education was decided. When I was eight, in 1961, the first Latino, the wonderful Judge Reynaldo Garza, was appointed to the federal bench, an event we are celebrating at this conference. When I finished law school in 1979, there were no women judges on the Supreme Court or on the highest court of my home state, New York. There was then only one Afro-American Supreme Court Justice and then and now no Latino or Latina justices on our highest court. Now in the last twenty plus years of my professional life, I have seen a quantum leap in the representation of women and Latinos in the legal profession and particularly in the judiciary. In addition to the appointment of the first female United States Attorney General, Janet Reno, we have seen the appointment of two female justices to the Supreme Court and two female justices to the New York Court of Appeals, the highest court of my home state. One of those judges is the Chief Judge and the other is a Puerto Riqueña, like I am. As of today, women sit on the highest courts of almost all of the states and of the territories, including Puerto Rico. One Supreme Court, that of Minnesota, had a majority of women justices for a period of time.

As of September 1, 2001, the federal judiciary consisting of Supreme, Circuit and District Court Judges was about 22% women. In 1992, nearly ten years ago, when I was first appointed a District Court Judge, the percentage of women in the total federal judiciary was only 13%. Now, the growth of Latino representation is somewhat less favorable. As of today we have, as I noted earlier, no Supreme Court justices, and we have only 10 out of 147 active Circuit Court judges and 30 out of 587 active district court judges. Those numbers are grossly below our proportion of the population. As recently as 1965, however, the federal bench had only three women serving and only one Latino judge. So changes are happening, although in some areas, very slowly. These figures and appointments are heartwarming. Nevertheless, much still remains to happen.

Let us not forget that between the appointments of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor in 1981 and Justice Ginsburg in 1992, eleven years passed. Similarly, between Justice Kaye's initial appointment as an Associate Judge to the New York Court of Appeals in 1983, and Justice Ciparick's appointment in 1993, ten years elapsed. Almost nine years later, we are waiting for a third appointment of a woman to both the Supreme Court and the New York Court of Appeals and of a second minority, male or female, preferably Hispanic, to the Supreme Court. In 1992 when I joined the bench, there were still two out of 13 circuit courts and about 53 out of 92 district courts in which no women sat. At the beginning of September of 2001, there are women sitting in all 13 circuit courts. The First, Fifth, Eighth and Federal Circuits each have only one female judge, however, out of a combined total number of 48 judges. There are still nearly 37 district courts with no women judges at all. For women of color the statistics are more sobering. As of September 20, 1998, of the then 195 circuit court judges only two were African-American women and two Hispanic women. Of the 641 district court judges only twelve were African-American women and eleven Hispanic women. African-American women comprise only 1.56% of the federal judiciary and Hispanic-American women comprise only 1%. No African-American, male or female, sits today on the Fourth or Federal circuits. And no Hispanics, male or female, sit on the Fourth, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, District of Columbia or Federal Circuits.

Sort of shocking, isn't it? This is the year 2002. We have a long way to go. Unfortunately, there are some very deep storm warnings we must keep in mind. In at least the last five years the majority of nominated judges the Senate delayed more than one year before confirming or never confirming were women or minorities. I need not remind this audience that Judge Paez of your home Circuit, the Ninth Circuit, has had the dubious distinction of having had his confirmation delayed the longest in Senate history. These figures demonstrate that there is a real and continuing need for Latino and Latina organizations and community groups throughout the country to exist and to continue their efforts of promoting women and men of all colors in their pursuit for equality in the judicial system.

This weekend's conference, illustrated by its name, is bound to examine issues that I hope will identify the efforts and solutions that will assist our communities. The focus of my speech tonight, however, is not about the struggle to get us where we are and where we need to go but instead to discuss with you what it all will mean to have more women and people of color on the bench. The statistics I have been talking about provide a base from which to discuss a question which one of my former colleagues on the Southern District bench, Judge Miriam Cederbaum, raised when speaking about women on the federal bench. Her question was: What do the history and statistics mean? In her speech, Judge Cederbaum expressed her belief that the number of women and by direct inference people of color on the bench, was still statistically insignificant and that therefore we could not draw valid scientific conclusions from the acts of so few people over such a short period of time. Yet, we do have women and people of color in more significant numbers on the bench and no one can or should ignore pondering what that will mean or not mean in the development of the law. Now, I cannot and do not claim this issue as personally my own. In recent years there has been an explosion of research and writing in this area. On one of the panels tomorrow, you will hear the Latino perspective in this debate.

For those of you interested in the gender perspective on this issue, I commend to you a wonderful compilation of articles published on the subject in Vol. 77 of the Judicature, the Journal of the American Judicature Society of November-December 1993. It is on Westlaw/Lexis and I assume the students and academics in this room can find it.

Now Judge Cedarbaum expresses concern with any analysis of women and presumably again people of color on the bench, which begins and presumably ends with the conclusion that women or minorities are different from men generally. She sees danger in presuming that judging should be gender or anything else based. She rightly points out that the perception of the differences between men and women is what led to many paternalistic laws and to the denial to women of the right to vote because we were described then "as not capable of reasoning or thinking logically" but instead of "acting intuitively." I am quoting adjectives that were bandied around famously during the suffragettes' movement.

While recognizing the potential effect of individual experiences on perception, Judge Cedarbaum nevertheless believes that judges must transcend their personal sympathies and prejudices and aspire to achieve a greater degree of fairness and integrity based on the reason of law. Although I agree with and attempt to work toward Judge Cedarbaum's aspiration, I wonder whether achieving that goal is possible in all or even in most cases. And I wonder whether by ignoring our differences as women or men of color we do a disservice both to the law and society. Whatever the reasons why we may have different perspectives, either as some theorists suggest because of our cultural experiences or as others postulate because we have basic differences in logic and reasoning, are in many respects a small part of a larger practical question we as women and minority judges in society in general must address. I accept the thesis of a law school classmate, Professor Steven Carter of Yale Law School, in his affirmative action book that in any group of human beings there is a diversity of opinion because there is both a diversity of experiences and of thought. Thus, as noted by another Yale Law School Professor -- I did graduate from there and I am not really biased except that they seem to be doing a lot of writing in that area - Professor Judith Resnik says that there is not a single voice of feminism, not a feminist approach but many who are exploring the possible ways of being that are distinct from those structured in a world dominated by the power and words of men. Thus, feminist theories of judging are in the midst of creation and are not and perhaps will never aspire to be as solidified as the established legal doctrines of judging can sometimes appear to be.

That same point can be made with respect to people of color. No one person, judge or nominee will speak in a female or people of color voice. I need not remind you that Justice Clarence Thomas represents a part but not the whole of African-American thought on many subjects. Yet, because I accept the proposition that, as Judge Resnik describes it, "to judge is an exercise of power" and because as, another former law school classmate, Professor Martha Minnow of Harvard Law School, states "there is no objective stance but only a series of perspectives - no neutrality, no escape from choice in judging," I further accept that our experiences as women and people of color affect our decisions. The aspiration to impartiality is just that--it's an aspiration because it denies the fact that we are by our experiences making different choices than others. Not all women or people of color, in all or some circumstances or indeed in any particular case or circumstance but enough people of color in enough cases, will make a difference in the process of judging. The Minnesota Supreme Court has given an example of this. As reported by Judge Patricia Wald formerly of the D.C. Circuit Court, three women on the Minnesota Court with two men dissenting agreed to grant a protective order against a father's visitation rights when the father abused his child. The Judicature Journal has at least two excellent studies on how women on the courts of appeal and state supreme courts have tended to vote more often than their male counterpart to uphold women's claims in sex discrimination cases and criminal defendants' claims in search and seizure cases. As recognized by legal scholars, whatever the reason, not one woman or person of color in any one position but as a group we will have an effect on the development of the law and on judging.

In our private conversations, Judge Cedarbaum has pointed out to me that seminal decisions in race and sex discrimination cases have come from Supreme Courts composed exclusively of white males. I agree that this is significant but I also choose to emphasize that the people who argued those cases before the Supreme Court which changed the legal landscape ultimately were largely people of color and women. I recall that Justice Thurgood Marshall, Judge Connie Baker Motley, the first black woman appointed to the federal bench, and others of the NAACP argued Brown v. Board of Education. Similarly, Justice Ginsburg, with other women attorneys, was instrumental in advocating and convincing the Court that equality of work required equality in terms and conditions of employment.

Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences, a possibility I abhor less or discount less than my colleague Judge Cedarbaum, our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging. Justice O'Connor has often been cited as saying that a wise old man and wise old woman will reach the same conclusion in deciding cases. I am not so sure Justice O'Connor is the author of that line since Professor Resnik attributes that line to Supreme Court Justice Coyle. I am also not so sure that I agree with the statement. First, as Professor Martha Minnow has noted, there can never be a universal definition of wise. Second, I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life.

Let us not forget that wise men like Oliver Wendell Holmes and Justice Cardozo voted on cases which upheld both sex and race discrimination in our society. Until 1972, no Supreme Court case ever upheld the claim of a woman in a gender discrimination case. I, like Professor Carter, believe that we should not be so myopic as to believe that others of different experiences or backgrounds are incapable of understanding the values and needs of people from a different group. Many are so capable. As Judge Cedarbaum pointed out to me, nine white men on the Supreme Court in the past have done so on many occasions and on many issues including Brown.

However, to understand takes time and effort, something that not all people are willing to give. For others, their experiences limit their ability to understand the experiences of others. Other simply do not care. Hence, one must accept the proposition that a difference there will be by the presence of women and people of color on the bench. Personal experiences affect the facts that judges choose to see. My hope is that I will take the good from my experiences and extrapolate them further into areas with which I am unfamiliar. I simply do not know exactly what that difference will be in my judging. But I accept there will be some based on my gender and my Latina heritage.

I also hope that by raising the question today of what difference having more Latinos and Latinas on the bench will make will start your own evaluation. For people of color and women lawyers, what does and should being an ethnic minority mean in your lawyering? For men lawyers, what areas in your experiences and attitudes do you need to work on to make you capable of reaching those great moments of enlightenment which other men in different circumstances have been able to reach. For all of us, how do change the facts that in every task force study of gender and race bias in the courts, women and people of color, lawyers and judges alike, report in significantly higher percentages than white men that their gender and race has shaped their careers, from hiring, retention to promotion and that a statistically significant number of women and minority lawyers and judges, both alike, have experienced bias in the courtroom?

Each day on the bench I learn something new about the judicial process and about being a professional Latina woman in a world that sometimes looks at me with suspicion. I am reminded each day that I render decisions that affect people concretely and that I owe them constant and complete vigilance in checking my assumptions, presumptions and perspectives and ensuring that to the extent that my limited abilities and capabilities permit me, that I reevaluate them and change as circumstances and cases before me requires. I can and do aspire to be greater than the sum total of my experiences but I accept my limitations. I willingly accept that we who judge must not deny the differences resulting from experience and heritage but attempt, as the Supreme Court suggests, continuously to judge when those opinions, sympathies and prejudices are appropriate.

There is always a danger embedded in relative morality, but since judging is a series of choices that we must make, that I am forced to make, I hope that I can make them by informing myself on the questions I must not avoid asking and continuously pondering. We, I mean all of us in this room, must continue individually and in voices united in organizations that have supported this conference, to think about these questions and to figure out how we go about creating the opportunity for there to be more women and people of color on the bench so we can finally have statistically significant numbers to measure the differences we will and are making.

I am delighted to have been here tonight and extend once again my deepest gratitude to all of you for listening and letting me share my reflections on being a Latina voice on the bench. Thank you.

Charles J. Ogletree Jr., a Harvard law professor and an adviser to Mr. Obama, said Judge Sotomayor’s remarks were appropriate. Professor Ogletree said it was “obvious that people’s life experiences will inform their judgments in life as lawyers and judges” because law is more than “a technical exercise,” citing Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.’s famous aphorism: “The life of the law has not been logic; it has been experience.”

In a forward to a 2007 book, “The International Judge” (U.P.N.E.), Judge Sotomayor seemed to put a greater emphasis on a need for judges to seek to transcend their identities, writing that “all judges have cases that touch our passions deeply, but we all struggle constantly with remaining impartial” and letting reason rule. Courts, she added, “are in large part the product of their membership and their judges’ ability to think through and across their own intellectual and professional backgrounds” to find common ground.

The Shifting Denial about Torture

The shifting denial about torture.

May 16, 2009
Sean Lewis

Torture is just one more nail into the coffin
for the Republican Party.

Cheney is just trying to protect himself and
doing preemptive damage control. It is clear
the torture policy was his decision. Cheney
is hoping for another terror attack so he can
be vindicated the same way the entire GOP
party wants President Obama to fail so the
GOP policies can be vindicated.

The water down spin on torture is that water
boarding is not torture. Dunking someones
head is hardly torture, it is like getting baptised!
The rough questioning was needed to get results!

However a few things are being left out, 98
dead prisoners, the torture did not work, and
torture is against the both US and International
law.

If all the CIA was doing was 'questioning' prisoners
why was a doctor needed to be present?

I have been questioned by the police, no doctor was present.

In previous questioning by the FBI, no doctor was present,
so what changed?

What changed was there was now a chance that the prisoner
might die from the harsh interrogation. In fact 98 prisoners
who were being held for 'questioning died.
http://opendebateforum2.blogspot.com/2009/04/98-prisoners-died-in-us-custody-report.html

This article had 623 footnotes verifying the deaths.
http://www.humanrightsfirst.info/pdf/06221-etn-hrf-dic-rep-web.pdf
I posted one of those footnotes at the end of this article.

The Torture Apologists want you to believe that water boarding
is not dangerous, problem is water boarding wasn't the only
harsh treatment the prisoners received. A point the Torture Apologist
conveniently do not bring up. Also if it wasn't torture
explain the 98 dead prisoners?

Next comes the issue of why the prisoners were being tortured
and what were the results of the torture.

We were told that the torture was to protect Americans from future
attack, and that valuable information came as a result of the torture.
This was after we were told that the US does not torture by the way.

The truth is that the CIA was torturing prisoners. not to protect
America or Americans, but to find a connection between Iraq and
9/11 or a connection between Iraq and Al qaeda. This was to
give cover to the Bush Administration after no WMD's were found
in Iraq.

The torture how ever did not work, In fact it had the opposite effect.
Prisoners who were cooperating and freely giving valuable Intel about
Al qaeda without torture to the FBI, stopped cooperation when the
CIA began torturing them about non existent connections between
Iraq and 9/11 or Iraq and Al Qaeda.

http://opendebateforum2.blogspot.com/2009/05/timeline-history-of-harsh-interrogation.html
http://opendebateforum2.blogspot.com/2009/05/report-links-cia-to-military-harsh.html
http://opendebateforum2.blogspot.com/2009/05/harsh-interrogation-techniques.html

The legality of torture is, there is none. The Bush Administration knew
this so in an effort to do a work around, the Bush Administration
redefined the status of the prisoners to a classification the Bush Administration
deemed outside of the Geneva Convention.

Next came the justification of 'Harsh Interrogation' because of the 'ticking
time bomb' scenario. The White House ordered White House attorneys to
write briefs not only saying that harsh interrogation was not torture, but
instances when harsh interrogation was prudent and advised.

Two problems with this, the need for a doctor during 'questioning' and the
98 dead prisoners, also the questioning of the prisoners had nothing to
do with an imminent threat that was time sensitive. It was about getting
back fill Intel to justify the Iraq invasion.

Currently the Torture Apologists are trying to say that key democratic leaders
were also culpable in the torture. The belief is, if everyone is guilty then
no one is guilty. The Torture Apologists are floating out the Pelosi knew
so it;s her fault the torture occurred.

The CIA said that the Leaders of the Democratic and Republican Parties were
briefed about the torture already being used against prisoners. When asked
for the dates of the briefings, the CIA gave four dates two in April of '02,
two in September." When these dates were checked, it was discovered that
three of these meetings never occurred. The fourth meeting was on the topic
of prisoner interrogation. The CIA says they INFORMED the Leaders of the
torture, even though it was already occurring without Congressional Approval
or Knowledge for a month or more. The Congressional Leaders disagree with
these facts and based on the erroneous dates already supplied, one has to
wonder what else the CIA has wrong?

http://opendebateforum2.blogspot.com/2009/05/floridas-graham-backs-pelosi-on-cia.html

So the Torture Apologists have shifted reasons for Torture each time their
reasons have been proven to be flawed or wrong. This is reminiscent of the reasons
to invade Iraq. The Apologists have claimed there was no torture, that the torture
wasn't limited, that the torture was needed to protect America and finally that the
torture approved of by the Democratic leaders so it was OK.

The one thing the Torture Apologists keep forgetting is this. Torture is illegal,
both domestically and internationally and that America is better than this.




321 See DIC Table: Unknown 1 (died in November 2002 in Afghanistan
“Salt Pit” prison of hypothermia after being chained to the floor and
left without blankets; official cause of death not released); Naseer
(allegedly tortured to death by Army Special Forces soldiers in Mar.
2003; official investigation findings not released); al-Sumaidae
(unarmed 21-year-old student allegedly killed in cold blood in June
2005 by
Marine during a search of his home; case referred to Navy criminal
investigators 10 days after death); Dababa (June 2003 autopsy
indicates body covered by bruises and at least 50 abrasions, with head
and neck suffering the most significant abuses, resulting in
hemorrhaging throughout his brain; official cause of death not
announced); Kenami (death after detainee subjected to extreme
exercise,
cuffed, hooded and left in overcrowded cell; cause officially
undetermined); al-Izmerly (chief of forensics at Baghdad Hospital
found
January 2004 death was due to “massive blow” to head; investigation
pending); Unknown 15 (U.S. forces allege male shot during home
raid while reaching for a pistol; family alleges he was a physically
disabled old man and reportedly provides medical records indicating a
spinal condition or degeneration; no criminal investigation or any
other action appears to have been initiated); Nasef Ibrahim (military
ruled
death due to natural causes; son, with him at the time, filed lawsuit
alleging death from abuse); Khan (military initially stated death due
to
heart attack, until press reports of snakebite; family alleges abuse;
no medical or other investigation records released since death in
September 2004); A. Najem (military ruled death from natural causes
after hunger strike, but no medical records or interviews in support);
Zaid (U.S.-conducted autopsy stated accidental death from heat stroke;
army official stated possibility that Zaid was not given enough
water or proper care). Human Rights First asked the Department of
Defense on January 20 and 26, 2006 the status of the investigations
and any prosecutions in the following cases for which, as of February
10, we had received no response: Naseer; al-Sumaidae; Dababa;
Kenami [sought comment on medical expert finding that death caused by
suffocation]; al-Izmerly; Ibrahim; Khan; Zaid.

Harsh interrogation techniques ineffective,' former FBI agent testifies

Harsh interrogation techniques ineffective,' former FBI agent
testifies

By WARREN P. STROBEL
McClatchy Newspapers
A former FBI special agent who interrogated senior al-Qaida captives
told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday that harsh
interrogation techniques are "ineffective, slow and unreliable," and
disputed claims by former Vice President Dick Cheney and others that
they helped uncover major terrorist plots.

Ali Soufan, a veteran FBI investigator, said that CIA officials and
others responsible for the extreme measures inflated the program's
successes and downplayed the consequences of physical abuse.

"The situation was, and remains, too risky to allow someone to
experiment with amateurish, Hollywood-style interrogation methods that
in reality taints sources, risks outcomes, ignores the end game and
diminishes our moral high ground," Soufan said.

"It was one of the worst and most harmful decisions made in our
efforts against al-Qaida," he said.

Former State Department official Philip Zelikow, who in 2005 was
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's point man in a battle to
overhaul the Bush administration's detention and interrogation
policies, joined Soufan in criticizing the use of techniques such as
waterboarding, a form of simulated drowning that's widely considered
torture.

Zelikow said the U.S. could combat terrorism without resorting to
extreme methods.

"Others may disagree," he said. "The government, and the country,
needs to decide whether they are right. If they are right, our laws
must change, and our country must change. I think they are wrong."

Cheney has argued that the now-defunct CIA program, which included a
global network of secret prisons, produced valuable intelligence that
thwarted terror attacks and saved American lives.

Cheney, who's scheduled to give a major speech on the subject next
week at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative Washington
policy organization, has called for the release of two classified CIA
memos that he says detail the program's successes.

However, Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., a member of the Senate Judiciary
and Intelligence committees, said he's seen the two documents and they
don't prove Cheney's case.

Soufan's testimony apparently was the first public appraisal by a
senior U.S. government interrogator who dealt directly with suspected
terrorists in CIA custody.

It came a month after President Barack Obama released four Bush-era
Justice Department legal memos justifying methods that included
confinement boxes, sleep deprivation and slamming detainees into
walls. That reopened the debate over whether top Bush officials should
be investigated and prosecuted for their actions.

Adding to the drama, Soufan testified from behind a screen where the
senators, but not the audience, could see him. Since at least one
photo of Soufan is available on the Internet, the reason for the
security measures wasn't readily apparent.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who's also an Air Force Reserve lawyer,
said the Bush administration erred in its reading of the law but
argued that harsh interrogation techniques sometimes produce valuable
information.

He challenged Soufan to dispute that.

"I can only speak to my experience," the former FBI agent replied.

"That's the point, isn't it?" Graham retorted.

Soufan was a lead FBI interrogator of Abu Zubaydah, one of the first
major al-Qaida figures to be captured after the Sept. 11, 2001,
terrorist attacks. The initial interrogation of Zubaydah, using the
bureau's traditional, rapport-building techniques, yielded valuable
intelligence, including the role of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed as the
mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, he said.

Then-CIA director George Tenet congratulated the interrogators - until
he learned that they were from the FBI, not the CIA, Soufan said. A
team from the CIA's Counterterrorism Center that included a government
contractor quickly replaced him and his colleagues. They introduced
harsh interrogation techniques, and Zubaydah's cooperation stopped,
Soufan said.

After complaints from officials in Washington about the dried-up
intelligence flow, Soufan and colleagues reverted to the traditional
approach, and Zubaydah began talking again.

To bolster the Democrats' case against torture, Sen. Sheldon
Whitehouse, D-R.I., released summaries of Soufan's interrogations of
another al-Qaida figure, Abu Jandal, who was a bodyguard to Osama bin
Laden. Without being tortured, Jandal divulged intimate details and
personal histories of bin Laden's inner circle, the 100 pages of
documents appear to show.

The hearing took place amid an escalating political fracas over what
congressional Democrats knew at the time about the CIA program.
Republicans say that documents call into question House Speaker Nancy
Pelosi's contention that she wasn't briefed about waterboarding.

Zelikow called the CIA program "a collective failure, in which a
number of officials and members of Congress (and staffers), of both
parties, played a part."

Zelikow wrote a classified February 2006 memo challenging the legal
reasoning of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel. The
White House responded by ordering copies of the memo destroyed, but
Zelikow said his six-page document has been retrieved from State
Department files and is undergoing declassification review.

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics/AP/v-print/story/1047093.html

The Senate Judiciary Committee hearing: http://judiciary.senate.gov/hearings/hearing.cfm?id=3842