This is important! Delay of CBS torture report in relation to USSC case!

Thanks goes to Kos ( http://www.dailykos.com/ ) for posting this on his blog -- I would have never connected these particular dots had I not seen this.

Read this LTTE from the 5/7 Washington Post:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A7016-2004May6.html

Fallout From Abu Ghraib
Friday, May 7, 2004

By requesting that CBS delay its report on prisoner abuses at Abu Ghraib by two weeks (news story, May 4), Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, deprived the country of a full and forthright oral argument before the Supreme Court on the rights of U.S. citizens whom the government has detained as "enemy combatants."

Oral argument in those cases, Hamdi v. Rumsfeld and Padilla v. Rumsfeld, ended about noon April 28. CBS aired the report eight hours later. Had the report aired the previous week, the government's responses to certain questions at oral argument would certainly have been different. Specifically, it would have been clear what abuses could be perpetrated under the government's theory that "enemy combatants" have no rights.

As it happened, the justices asked Principal Deputy Solicitor General Paul D. Clement what in the law would check the executive branch from torturing prisoners. He responded that the government would honor its obligations under the "convention to prohibit torture and that sort of thing."

He also explained that as a practical matter torture is not the best means of extracting information from prisoners, because one "would wonder about the reliability of the information you are getting"; the "way you get the best information from individuals is that you interrogate them, you try to develop a relationship of trust. . . ."

Mr. Clement said that it is "the judgment of those involved in these processes, that the last thing you want to do is torture somebody." He concluded in response to a question about checks on the executive branch's authority to engage in torture: "You have to recognize that . . . where the government is on a war footing, you have to trust the executive. . . ."

As the abuses at Abu Ghraib show, one cannot simply trust the executive branch to protect human rights under U.S. criminal law, the Constitution and the Geneva Conventions. For the sake of our security and for the protection of human rights everywhere, we believe the court should agree.

JAMES F. FITZPATRICK

Washington

The writer, a partner at the law firm Arnold & Porter, filed friend-of-the-court briefs with the Supreme Court in the Hamdi and Padilla cases on behalf of Global Rights, a Washington-based international human rights group that he chairs.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

General Myers' attempt at suppressing the news of the Abu Ghraib atrocities was about MORE than just delaying bad publicity for the Iraq occupation, the delay served to deprive evidence to the defense in the Supreme Court case!

sw

nt

I'm not sure how these things work. Do they set a time limit on their deliberations? Do they normally announce that they will have a decision by a specific date? (Unless they're interfering in a presidential election, that is...)

sw

also the high holy court is supposed to deliver unto them sometime in late June.

There's SO damn much unbelievable crap to keep track of!

sw

Fingers in every pie!

They're just evil. Unbelievably evil.

Is this another form of subverting the Court?

I've been wondering about this since the pictures came out.

Also, speaking of "the government's theory that 'enemy combatants' have no rights.," there was a military law expert on "The World" this evening who said categorically that the Geneva Conventions apply to ANY detainee or prisoner, NO MATTER WHAT LABEL you put on him (that is, whether he or she is an enemy combatant or a POW, etc.).

I thought about that connection last week. I think there will still be an impact because the decision hasn't been made yet.

The justices may not watch TV all the time, but they do live in Wash. They'd all have to be deaf, dumb, and blind not to have heard about this. I don't see any reason why information received after the hearing couldn't be part of the decision.

What I mean is, aren't court cases supposed to be decided ONLY on the evidence that is actually presented in the court room? Isn't that the standard of U.S. jurisprudence? Is the Supreme Court less bound by these rules than other courts?

If the decision is supposed be made solely on the merits of the arguments presented during the formal procedure, they can't very well take external factors into account, can they?

sw

And you can bet they are going to take this into account - all except for Thomas and Scalia.

It is so rotten it is hard to believe. These people all need to be locked up

*

and not Defense? And part of the smokescreen is "Fire Rummy!" as opposed to "Impeach Bush/Cheney?"

It's really all one evil cabal. But yes, any calls for Rummy's head seem to me to be displaced. He's just one of the tentacles, the whole monster needs to go.

sw

That was important!

We have got to "go get those Bush Bastards! (TM)" - The Magistrate

The multi-dimensionality of the evil that emanates from bushco still manages to astound me now and again.

sw