While both houses of the U.S. Congress are busily debating whether or not possible investigations of the Bush administration’s policies on the torture of prisoners and detainees in its wars on terror, Iraq and Afghanistan should be held at all, and if held whether or not they should be public, California Senator Diane Feinstein has managed to forestall the public possibility for a year. Democrat Feinstein and Republican Kit Bond of Missouri as chair and co-chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee announced on March 5 a Committee review of the CIA’s detention and interrogation program.

The probe is designed to discover new information about the origins of the programs as well as to scrutinize their operations. The five specified areas of investigation include:

• The creation, operation and maintenance of the CIA interrogation program.

• How detainees were assessed as to who possessed information valuable enough to require “enhanced interrogation techniques.”

• Whether the Intelligence Committee, Office of Legal Counsel and other responsible offices of government received accurate information from the CIA about its detention and interrogation programs.

• Whether the programs were implemented in compliance with guidance issued by the pertinent government offices.

• Whether information gained through the programs was valuable enough to justify the programs themselves.

The Obama administration is conducting its own concurrent review in-house. Such closed-door investigations may or may not lead to more open examinations, and there is the possibility that immunity granted to witnesses in these non-public reviews may interfere with any future public testimony and/or prosecutions that proceed from violations of law if those are determined to have occurred.

It would appear that the “move forward” attitude of the new administration and among enablers in Congress in light of revelations coming out via Bush administration memos and documents ordered to be released by judicial review requires some behind-the-scenes machinations to ensure that public disclosure cannot lead to criminal prosecutions or public disclosure of some of the worst abuses in programs the public already knows from sickening photographs and documents already released went well beyond rational justification and the few “bad apples” on the lower tiers thus far prosecuted for prisoner abuses.

Public pressure for the appointment of a special prosecutor is quickly gaining momentum. In the past independent investigations for prosecution have been conducted before or concurrently with Congressional investigations so as to minimize the impact of immunity granted to witnesses or possible defendants. By insisting that the secret investigations precede any possible public ones it is practically a foregone conclusion that the public will never see justice done for any violations of law the public is also not allowed to know about.

No wonder people are becoming seriously jaded about politics and politicians in this country.

Links:

Senate panel starts inquiry into CIA interrogation program
Feinstein, Bond Announce Intelligence Committee Review of CIA Detention and Interrogation Program
Senate to investigate CIA’s actions under Bush

As an early Edwards supporter strong on health care, I considered the erstwhile “frontrunner” [Hillary Clinton] to be well to the right-center of me. As Obama’s star rose, I investigated and found him well to the right-center of me too. I was going for the populist, not The Machine or The Inspiration. Because after all the harm the Bushies have done over nearly eight years, Democrats have proven themselves cowards over and over and over again. Even after 2006. We needed, thought I, someone who understands reality in America, not just for the top 2%.

Sometimes I think we need a third party, to represent those of us who self-identify as ‘progressive’. But I’ve seen too many split-party tactics in my time, and I’m not sure at all that the US can handle more than two parties sans a representative form of parliamentary government. We’re just not equipped for it. Yet the Constitution is the only thing still standing between me and Big Brother. I’m not willing to give up on it now.

Which brings me around to the current presumptive front-runner, Barack Obama. And his odd vote on the FISA bill, complete with expansion of powers and retroactive immunity for breaking the law for the telecoms who were blackmailed into cooperating with illegal wiretaps.

The country’s just not in THAT much danger. I’m not plotting terrorist attacks when I talk to my relatives or friends on the phone. But I damn sure don’t want the NSA listening to everything I say! Or logging all my text messages. Or reading all my emails. I believe it’s a complete waste of resources electronic and human. I am not a threat. The time, money, energy and storage space they waste on me talking to my 85-year old Mother-in-Law or giving hubby a grocery list on his way home from work is wasted EVERYTHING.

Hard earned by somebody, not just me, then given to the government under duress, to be wasted on crap like this. I’m sick of it. I don’t feel safer because they search random 55-year old schoolteachers at the airport. I don’t feel safer because they won’t let me fly (have unpaid traffic ticket). I don’t feel safer because they pay someone more money than I make to do nothing other than listen in on all my private communications with my friends and family, and all those “My Name Is Bob” Punjabis that call innumerable times of the day to collect bills or sell me something I don’t want.

I want the government to understand what the threat is, so when they try to scare me they’re not trying to make me afraid of my next-door neighbor for no reason. Or afraid of my friends. Or my family. Or “My Name Is Bob” in Bangalore. Or myself. I am not a terrorist. I know what Arab terrorists look like. Even when they’re wearing regular clothes. I know they’ve a certain background profile and are usually here on visa. They don’t look like 55-year old-lady schoolteachers or some random business-class regular whose name isn’t on the company credit card (I HATE that commercial!).

Then I want the government to target the threat. If my government is more frightened of me than Al Queda, maybe we should all be asking ourselves why that’s so. The answer might not please us, but it might tell us something we need to know.

I was born and raised in the military (US Navy). My Dad spent 27 years in service as an officer (we called him Commander). I married military (US Navy, nuclear submarine service). I have a son and nephew in the current wars too. I grew up with the firm understanding – as part of my environmental patriotism – that America was not just the Land of the Free. It was, even moreso, the Home of the Brave.

What ever happened to that? Didn’t it have to go away before the whole Land of the Free thing got trashed?

This is the week of the 4th of July. America’s Own Holiday. Mr. Obama, you’re wrong on this FISA bill. It doesn’t matter if you vote on the ‘losing’ side, if you’re President come January. Stand to! Because either way, this legislation is designed to haunt the future. You get to decide how you’d like that haunting to go. Fix what Bush and the Wimps did to us (we’ll insist), or start out as a certifiable autocrat. You’ll lose a lot on that account.

The liberty we’d reserve to ourselves here isn’t worth the cost if you flip us off, honest. I, for one, am not afraid. I’ll die of something someday, it matters more to me how I LIVE. I will not surrender my freedom lightly because you’re afraid of me. No More Cowards.