October 2007 archive

Crossposted at Invictus and Daily Kos

Like a scenario out of an Alfred Hitchcock movie, an innocent man was accused of assisting the 9/11 hijackers in their terrorist plot. Abdallah Higazy was an Egyptian national studying computer engineering at Polytechnic University in Brooklyn. In December 2001, he was coerced into falsely confessing his “role” in 9/11 after the FBI was tipped that he supposedly owned an air-band transceiver capable of air-to-air and air-to-ground communication.

The transceiver turned out to belong to an airline pilot staying in Abdallah’s NY hotel. Higazy was released after 34 days in custody. He subsequently sued both his FBI interrogator and the hotel he stayed in, whose security officers had found the radio. The hotel settled, but initially the FBI suit was dismissed. Upon appeal, the 2nd Circuit remanded the case to district court.

Now here’s what’s really amazing: the court brief clearly shows that the FBI threatened torture of Higazy’s family back in Egypt. When the brief was published online, it was quickly withdrawn and replaced with a censored version, without the torture threats. Blogger Howard Bashman had the first version however, posted it, and then received a call from the court demanding he take down the unredacted version.

Here’s a great piece from Winslow Homer’s wood engraving period. It was published in Harper’s Weekly on December 6, 1873.

I love this guy’s real, surreal, and dream-like images… it’s like he knows the way i dream and daydream.

I also thought of Steven King’s Children of the Corn…

Some news and open thread.

1. The Washington Post reports The Senate Judiciary Committee will vote on Mukasey confirmation on Tuesday. “Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) announced today that the Senate Judiciary Committee will vote Tuesday on attorney general nominee Michael B. Mukasey, whose confirmation has been complicated by his repeated refusal to declare that an interrogation tactic that uses simulated drowning constitutes illegal torture. The announcement from Leahy comes a day after Mukasey wrote a letter to the committee saying that while he considers waterboarding ‘repugnant,’ he does not know whether the technique violates U.S. laws against torture.”

   Mukasey “said it is ‘an open question,’ for example, whether a U.S. citizen seized on U.S. soil can be detained indefinitely after the president declares that he is in an enemy combatant. He also reiterated his view that the president can ignore surveillance laws if they infringe on his powers as commander in chief, and said a Justice Department prosecutor cannot enforce a congressional subpoena if the White House has asserted a claim of executive privilege.”

   Mukasey should be rejected by the senators. If any Democrat votes for Mukasey, he will become the Attorney General. Mukasey must be stopped in committee.

2. The New York Times reports the Fed lowers key interest rate by a quarter point. “Federal Reserve policymakers, worried that the meltdown in housing could continue to slow the entire economy, cut their benchmark interest rate today by a quarter point to 4.50 percent, from 4.75. Today’s rate cut follows an unusually large one-half percentage point in September”.

3. According to Spiegel, Rising prices widen gap between rich and poor. “Central banks flooded the world with cheap money for years, helping the rich get richer. Now inflation is on the horizon, threatening to make the poor even poorer… The excess dollars, euro and yen that were not being spent on capital goods went into more lucrative investments… And those were the rich of this world, the people who had enough surplus income to invest it profitably. The gap between rich and poor only became wider… Those who have money can also attempt to beat inflation with evasive strategies. Existing loans, such as mortgage loans, become cheaper relative to income. Besides, high earners can shift their assets to inflation-proof investments like gold or other precious metals.”

4. A couple of developments from Burma. The Guardian reports Burmese monks begin fresh protests. “More than 100 Buddhist monks marched and chanted in Burma today in the first public demonstration since the military junta crushed last month’s anti-government protests, several monks said. The monks in Pakokku made no political statements and shouted no slogans, but their march, which lasted nearly an hour, was in clear defiance of the government.”

   The Independent reports Burma forces children into combat as adults desert army. “The Burmese junta is making more and more use of child soldiers, some as young as 10, according to a Human Rights Watch report published today. Finding it increasingly hard to recruit adult soldiers, and trying to cope with high desertion rates and a constantly expanding demand for fighters, army recruiters pick on children at bus and train stations and force them to join up.”

So, what else is happening?

—————

Here’s a true Halloween scary story for you.

Over at The Big Orange, I’m sure many of you have seen this:

Harman’s Response to drational’s FISA Post

Have a look and come back for a brief chat if you haven’t seen it yet.

They’re back, bless them!

More than 100 monks have marched in central Burma, the first time they have returned to the streets since last month’s bloody crackdown on protests.

The monks chanted and prayed as they marched through Pakokku, the site of an incident last month that triggered pro-democracy protests nationwide.

One of the biggest disappointments of last night's debate for me was Senator Chris Dodd's refusal to discuss (sure Russert and Williams were not going to ask about it, but so what, thrust the issue into the debate) the raison de etre for his candidacy – restoration of the Constitution ad the rule of law. And today, as Glenn Greenwald discusses, Senator Jay Rockefeller reaches a new disgraceful low, as he argues for total disrespect for the rule of law:

Today there is significant debate about whether the underlying program — the president's warrantless surveillance plan — was legal or violated constitutional rights. That is an important debate, and those questions must be answered.

In the meantime, however, these companies are being sued, which is unfair and unwise. As the operational details of the program remain highly classified, the companies are prevented from defending themselves in court. And if we require them to face a mountain of lawsuits, we risk losing their support in the future.

What drivel. Losing their support in what? Breaking the law? What in blazes is rockefeller talking about? The telcos will not honor duly issued warrants because they are being sued? Ah, there's the rub. Rockefeller does not believe in the NEED for the government and telcos to follow the law. What's the rule of law to Rockefeller? Nothing at all. He is a disgrace. More.