From the NY Times: Letters Give C.I.A. Tactics a Legal Rationale: In response to a congressional request, the Department of Justice has written a letter claiming that it is sometimes legal to torture. Well, the NY Times hesitates to use the actual word T.O.R.T.U.R.E. Here’s how they say it, you know, in language that befits the grey lady. Ahem.

The Justice Department has told Congress that American intelligence operatives attempting to thwart terrorist attacks can legally use interrogation methods that might otherwise be prohibited under international law.

“Otherwise be prohibited under international law.” Translation: Illegal.

A wise young woman whom I’ve never met, spoken with, or corresponded with, but whom I feel like I know, once said: “All you have to do to qualify for human rights is be human.” In those 13 words, she elegantly summed up both the ultimate meaning of the claim for human rights and the origin of their breach. The very articulation of human rights traces their prior transgression. Without humans wronged, there is no need for a claim of human rights

The claim for human rights is a simple proposition: “I am human.” But this claim depends upon recognition and accord. The one who violates the rights of the other does so precisely because this claim of humanity is not recognized or falls on deaf ears.

Thus the paradox of human rights: There where they need to be asserted, they are precisely denied. When I most need to say “I am human,” I cannot. I need you to say my I, the I that is being violated, negated, erased.  

Just a quickie, because this seems like news to me.

From the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR):

“For the first time, the CIA has acknowledged that extensive records exist relating to its use of enforced disappearances and secret prisons,” said Curt Goering, AIUSA senior deputy executive director. “Given what we already know about documents written by Bush administration officials trying to justify torture and other human rights crimes, one does not need a fertile imagination to conclude that  the real reason for refusing to disclose these documents has more to do with avoiding disclosure of criminal activity than national security.“

Celebrate it. I know, I know, everyday is 420, but today it is, uh, like, really 4/20, man. And it’s a full moon too. So light ’em up, listen to this tune and join me after the jump.

Master Thomas at length said he would stand it no longer. I had lived with him nine months, during which time he had given me a number of severe whippings, all to no good purpose. He resolved to put me out, as he said, to be broken; and, for this purpose, he let me for one year to a man named Edward Covey. Mr. Covey was a poor man, a farm-renter. He rented the place upon which he lived, as also the hands with which he tilled it. Mr. Covey had acquired a very high reputation for breaking young slaves, and this reputation was of immense value to him … Added to the natural good qualities of Mr. Covey, he was a professor of religion–a pious soul–a member and a class-leader in the Methodist church. All of this added weight to his reputation as a “nigger-breaker.” I was aware of all the facts, having been made acquainted with them by a young man who had lived there. I nevertheless made the change gladly; for I was sure of getting enough to eat, which is not the smallest consideration to a hungry man.

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

Tonight I had the tremendous opportunity to hear Kenneth Roth, Executive Director of Human Rights Watch give a lecture on Defending Rights without Courts and Judges: War Stories from Around the World and Our Backyard. I’ve long admired HRW and Roth. Many of you have probably seen him speak or read him, and you know what a thoughtful, articulate, and humorous person he is, and I must say I left the lecture feeling both hopeful about the world and hopeless about our nation–how’s that for a powerful evening?  

GITMO: where are you?

You are not in Cuba. You are not in the U.S.

You are not in the law.

You are nothing but the law. Not the law as vehicle of justice, but law as the articulation of brute power.

People turn away from GITMO because it reveals the violence that ultimately grants the law its authority, its power.