Entries by emptywheel

Obama Administration Defends Stupid Counterterrorism Decisions, Again

Only this time, those decisions were made by his own Administration: The Department of Defense said Monday it acted correctly when it barred three journalists, including Miami Herald reporter Carol Rosenberg, from covering military hearings at Guantánamo Bay. But it left open the door to reinstating the reporters. David A. Schulz, the attorney representing Rosenberg […]

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Briefing Congress and Destroying Torture Tapes

As I mentioned in this post, I’ve been weeding through the documents released under FOIA to Judicial Watch last week. I think they suggest there’s a much closer relationship between the CIA misrepresentations on Congressional Briefings and the destruction of the torture tapes than we’ve known before. Nancy Pelosi Was Proved Fucking Right As you […]

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SCOTUS Denies Cert for Maher Arar

Apparently, this country has deemed it okay to take an innocent Canadian citizen transiting through US airports and instead send them to a third country to be tortured. That seems to be the lesson from SCOTUS’ decision to deny Maher Arar cert in his suit against the US. From a CCR press release on the […]

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White House Won’t Tell DNI It Should Be More Powerful

Now for your latest installment of DOD’s expanding intelligence authorities, DNI’s increasing irrelevance, and the White House’s efforts to make sure those trends continue. As you’ll recall, back in March, the Senate Intelligence Committee sent a scathing report on the many failures to stop the Undie Bomber. The report was most critical of the head […]

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BP Well Bore/Casing Integrity Issues and Senator Nelson’s Statements

A week ago, Florida Senator Bill Nelson stated on MSNBC the BP Macondo well was substantially breached and there may be seepage and leakage from the well reservoir escaping through the surrounding sea floor. It appears Nelson was correct about the breach of well integrity and may well be right about seepage from the sea floor as well.

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NYT, Republican Opposition Rag

Clark Hoyt has a really curious final column summarizing his three years as the NYT’s public editor. A lot of it is self-congratulation to the NYT for even having a public editor. But I’m most fascinated by Hoyt’s rebuttal of reader claims that NYT is a “liberal rag.” For all of my three years, I […]

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“Incentives for Cooperation”

David Kris gave a speech at the Brookings Institute last week, largely intended to make the case for civilian trials. Here’s the main framework of the speech: Today, however, the consensus that developed in the aftermath of 9/11 shows some signs of unraveling.  In particular, there are some who say that law enforcement can’t – […]

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