Abu Zubaydah’s American-Taxpayer Paid Tour of the World

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You should read two pieces in conjunction this morning. First, this Andy Worthington piece from last week, that lays out new details on the black site CIA used in Poland in 2002-2003.

On Friday, the Polish Border Guard Office released a number of documents to the Warsaw-based Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights, which, for the first time, provide details of the number of prisoners transferred by the CIA to a secret prison in Poland between December 5, 2002, and September 22, 2003, and, in one case, the number of prisoners who were subsequently transferred to a secret CIA prison in Romania. The documents (available here and here) provide important information about the secret prison at Szymany, in northeastern Poland, and also add to what is known about the program in Romania, which has received far less scrutiny.

[snip]

Friday’s revelations by the Polish Border Guard Office are, however, even more significant, firstly because they include, for the first time, confirmation that N63MU flew into Poland on December 5, 2002, and secondly, because they provide details of the number of passengers on seven of the flights, as follows:

December 5, 2002: 8 passengers delivered

February 8, 2003: 7 passengers delivered; 4 others flown to an unknown destination

March 7, 2003: 2 passengers delivered

March 25, 2003: 1 passenger delivered

May 6, 2003: 1 passenger delivered

July 30, 2003: 1 passenger delivered

September 22, 2003: 0 passengers delivered; 5 flown to Romania

Then, read this AP piece, which fleshes out details about the first time that Abu Zubaydah and three other detainees went to Gitmo.

Four of the nation’s most highly valued terrorist prisoners were secretly moved to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in 2003, years earlier than has been disclosed, then whisked back into overseas prisons before the Supreme Court could give them access to lawyers, The Associated Press has learned.

[snip]

Before dawn on Sept. 24, 2003, a white, unmarked Boeing 737 landed at Guantanamo Bay. At least four al-Qaida operatives, some of the CIA’s biggest captures to date, were aboard: Abu Zubaydah, Abd al-Nashiri, Ramzi Binalshibh and Mustafa al-Hawsawi.

Together, the articles provide key new details of the global voyages that Abu Zubaydah and other key detainees took between CIA black sites. And the AP piece confirms something earlier revealed in the ICRC report completed in 2007 and released last year: that at least four of the High Value Detainees were in Gitmo in 2003-2004, until they were moved again precisely to hide them from the ICRC.

ICRC notes that four detainees believed that they had previously been held in Guantanamo, for periods ranging from one week to one year during 2003/4. They reported recognising this location upon return there in September 2006, as each had been allowed outdoors on a daily basis during their earlier time there. The ICRC has been assured by DoD that it was given full notification of and access to all persons held in Guantanamo during its regular detention visits. The ICRC is concerned, if the allegations are confirmed, it had in fact been denied access to these persons during the period in which they were detained there.

Now, the two pieces in conjunction answer key questions. As Worthington points out, we know from this that Abu Zubaydah and Rahim al-Nashiri (and, he adds, Ramzi bin al-Shibh) got moved from Thailand to Poland in December 5, 2002, as CIA was making their first efforts to close the Thai black site and destroy the torture tapes. And then the three of them, plus Mustafa al-Hawsawi, got moved to Gitmo the following September 24, 2003. Then, on March 27, 2004, they were taken away from Gitmo.

One implication of this, of course, is that the death threats used against al-Nashiri–reportedly investigated by John Durham (and, I have speculated, possibly one reason Philip Mudd retired in March) happened on Polish soil.

It also times interestingly with Jack Goldsmith’s tenure at OLC (October to July) and even more interestingly with the CIA IG Report (they got Zubaydah and Nashiri–against both of whom the IG Report described torture–out of Gitmo before Congress got a hold of the report).

But the two reports also lay out further area for inquiry. At least according to what detainees told the ICRC, at least one of the detainees who were in Gitmo in this early period were only there for a week. But that also suggests some of the four might not have known they were at Gitmo when they returned in 2006, perhaps because they didn’t have the same exercise privilege (and remember that detainees, at least as of a few months ago, still exercised only with those who they had been in black sites before, so they couldn’t compare notes). Does this mean others were moved to Gitmo’s “Strawberry Fields” after this first bunch?

Finally, note how CIA’s spokesperson, in his comment to the AP, wants this story to be about events that happened six years ago.

CIA spokesman George Little said: “The so-called black sites and enhanced interrogation methods, which were administered on the basis of guidance from the Department of Justice, are a thing of the past.”

Aside from the fact that Little said this while John Durham’s inquiry into the torture that exceeded the guidance of DOJ is ongoing, it also distracts attention from other inconvenient little facts: like the presumably ongoing existence of Camp No, and the weird qualification in Obama’s Gitmo closure orders limiting them only to those at Gitmo considered to be enemy combatants.

Still, kudos to Worthington and the AP for their work to tease out the global trajectories of these detainees.

Canadian Judge: Omar Khadr’s Brother Was Illegally Held and Interrogated

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Omar Khadr is set to go on trial starting Monday, August 9.

Today, his brother went free in Canada.

A judge ruled that he could not be extradited to the US because the confessions on which his extradition request was based had been collected when he was illegally held and interrogated in Pakistan.

Abdullah Khadr walked out of a Toronto courtroom a free man Wednesday after an Ontario judge denied a U.S. request to send him to Boston to face terrorism charges.

[snip]

Reading passages from his 62-page decision, [the judge in the case, Christopher] Speyer told a Toronto court that setting aside the extradition order was a “remedy of last resort” required in this case due to the fact that Khadr was illegally held and interrogated.

Khadr’s lawyers Nathan Whitling and Dennis Edney had argued that extraditing Khadr would mean Canada supports countries that violate international law.

Pakistan was paid a $500,000 (US) bounty to arrest Khadr in 2004. He was held without charges for 14 months and interrogated by intelligence and police agents from the U.S., Pakistan and Canada.

The Boston case against the 29-year-old Khadr was based on his own statements made in Pakistan and then repeated in Toronto upon his return in 2005.

Abdullah Khadr, like his brother Omar, said he made the confession only after suffering from abuse.

This decision may be appealed. But for the moment, Abdullah Khadr’s fate sets up an interesting contrast with the likely fate of his brother before the Gitmo show trials.

Jay Rockefeller and the Torture Tape Investigation

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I’ve been writing a lot about the way CIA gamed briefings with Congress so they could destroy evidence of torture: how they created potentially misleading records about the September 2002 briefings with destroying the torture tapes in mind, how they created a record of Pat Roberts’ approval for destroying the torture tapes in February 2003 but not Harman’s disapproval of them, and how Crazy Pete Hoekstra got a really suspicious briefing the morning the torture tapes were destroyed.

But I’ve been neglecting the role Jay Rockefeller may play in all this.

Yesterday’s AP-hosted CIA spin made a big deal of Harriet Miers’ early 2005 order that CIA not destroy the torture tapes.

In early 2005, Rizzo received a similar order from the new White House counsel, Harriet Miers. The CIA was not to destroy the tapes without checking with the White House first.

It’s in that context where they list all the requests that might cover the videotapes and explain why they weren’t legally binding on the CIA: three judges orders and the 9/11 Commission request.

But that narrative left out a few more data points. Oddly, the AP seems to make nothing of John Negroponte’s warning to Porter Goss–issued on or before July 28, 2005–not to destroy the torture tapes. Maybe that’s because it reveals that months after Rizzo got the order from Harriet Miers, the Director of CIA was still actively discussing destroying the tapes. Maybe that’s because, given Goss’ apparent happiness with Rodriguez’ destruction of the tapes in November 2005, the evidence that Goss was considering destroying them three months earlier suggests complicity.

Now consider the two requests from Jay Rockefeller for John McPherson’s report on the torture tapes.

In May 2005, I wrote the CIA Inspector General requesting over a hundred documents referenced in or pertaining to his May 2004 report on the CIA’s detention and interrogation activities. Included in my letter was a request for the CIA to provide to the Senate Intelligence Committee the CIA’s Office of General Counsel report on the examination of the videotapes and whether they were in compliance with the August 2002 Department of Justice legal opinion concerning interrogation. The CIA refused to provide this and the other detention and interrogation documents to the committee as requested, despite a second written request to CIA Director Goss in September 2005.

It was during this 2005 period that I proposed without success, both in committee and on the Senate floor, that the committee undertake an investigation of the CIA’s detention and interrogation activities. In fact, all members of the congressional intelligence committees were not fully briefed into the CIA interrogation program until the day the President publicly disclosed the program last September. [my emphasis]

So in May 2005, Rockefeller asked John Helgerson for McPherson’s report. Then in September 2005, Rockefeller asked Porter Goss for the report directly. And Porter Goss–the guy who was actively considering destroying the torture tapes in July 2005 and who ultimately applauded Rodriguez’ success in destroying them–completely blew off Rockefeller’s request.

Mind you, Rockefeller asked for the report on the tapes, not the tapes themselves. But we now know that the report lacked any mention of the things noted in the IG Report: descriptions of the broken and blank tapes. We also know that the report didn’t do what is was purportedly intended to do: review whether the torturers had followed guidelines on torture.

Had Rockefeller gotten that report in 2005–in response to either his request of Helgerson or his request directly of Goss–he would have had good reason to at least suspect that the CIA had been engaging in a cover-up in November 2002 to January 2003, when it claimed to have reviewed whether Abu Zubaydah’s torturers followed DOJ guidelines but really did no such thing. He would have had reason to wonder why a lawyer, having reviewed tapes with abundant evidence of tampering, hadn’t even bothered to mention that tampering.

Which probably would have led him to ask for the tapes.

Mind you, like the 9/11 Commission, Rockefeller didn’t subpoena the report (as he noted, his push for a torture investigation was thwarted, presumably by then SSCI Chair Pat Roberts, the guy who had signed off on destroying the tapes).

But for some reason the CIA doesn’t want to admit it had this request pertaining to the torture tapes, in addition to all the requests from judges.

Nancy Pelosi: How Dare the Administration Say they Would Veto Intelligence Reform?

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In a an interview with me on intelligence reform on Saturday, Speaker Pelosi suggested that the White House should either accept real reform of the oversight function–including some version of House amendments on GAO review of intelligence programs and expanded intelligence briefing beyond the Gang of Four–or accept full responsibility if anything goes wrong with its intelligence programs, because the intelligence committee (or at least the House intelligence committee) cannot exercise effective oversight under the current rules.

Recent coverage on the intelligence reform routinely points out that Speaker Pelosi refuses to budge on these two issues. But it rarely explains why Pelosi is so adamant about these reforms. In our interview, Pelosi (and Jan Schakowsky, who was in the room) laid out some of the reasons: Pelosi discussed the times when Gang of Four members were briefed but could not tell others (including an oblique discussion of the games CIA played with their briefings of her on torture). Schakowsky reminded Pelosi that Congress did not know the intelligence “justifying” the Iraq War. The Speaker also described a time when expanding numbers of House staffers were read into a topic only briefed to the Gang of Four, even while the members of the committee were not briefed. Pelosi mentioned the investigation Schakowsky’s subcommittee did, which concluded that CIA had failed to inform the Intelligence Committee of five major incidents. Schakowsky described the resource and expertise limitations on the committee and explained how GAO could alleviate that. Pelosi described an unevenness between the way the White House treats non-compartmented intelligence requests from the Senate and the House–including deciding to prevent specific members from seeing particular intelligence.

And both women described the absurdity by which a quarter-million contractors can get Top Secret clearance but the members of Congress selected to conduct oversight over Executive Branch intelligence activities (including, in an ideal world, over those very same contractors) couldn’t get access to the same information the contractors got.

Pelosi and Schakowsky seemed thoroughly frustrated with the joke that has become of intelligence oversight, particularly since the Bush Administration found a bunch of new ways to game the system and now the Obama Administration has threatened to veto House efforts to eliminate the ways Bush succeeded in gaming the system.

And of course, we discussed all these complaints in the context of last week’s WaPo series and what Pelosi calls the “Leviathan” of the intelligence contracting world, in which, right now, Congress can’t conduct cost analysis of contractors or measure the efficacy of the outsourced programs.

Now, I’m pretty sympathetic with the frustration with the arrogance of Administrations that refuse to share information.

Nancy Pelosi: Now, not having to do with the difference between ranking and regular members, when I became Ranking Member, I was in the room all the time and this and that oh my god and then you can’t and members are taking votes and you’re thinking, ‘You don’t even know what you’re voting on.’

[snip]

So but if you’re a Senator–and this is why the Senate doesn’t mind that much–if you’re a Senator and you want to go and get any information on intelligence–I’m not talking about highly compartmented–

Marcy Wheeler: Wiretapping and interrogation…

Pelosi: Well, it just depends on what they might be at any given time. I’m just talking about intelligence information. Intelligence. You’re a Senator [knocks on table] Here it is. You’re a House member, you have to have a vote of the Committee.

Schakowsky: Yes you do.

Pelosi: … to get it. Which you may or may not get. And which the Administration may or may not approve, depending on who it is and the rest of that. Read more →

The AP’s “Most Complete Published Account” that Leaves Out Torture

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The AP’s DOJ and intelligence writers have a story out on the Durham investigation that purports to be “the most complete published account” of the destruction of the torture tapes. Only, it ignores key details that have already been published which paint a much more damning picture of the tapes and their destruction.

First, the news. The AP story does reveal the following new details:

  • The name of the guy in Thailand–then station chief Mike Winograd–involved in the destruction of the tapes
  • The news that the guy who destroyed the torture tapes–former CTC and Clandestine Services head Jose Rodriguez–is still lurking around Langley as a contractor with Edge Consulting
  • The observation that Rodriguez did not include the two CIA lawyers who “approved” the torture tape destruction (Steven Hermes and Robert Eatinger, who have been identified before) on his order to destroy them, which is perceived within CIA as highly unusual
  • The hint that prosecutors may use Sarbanes-Oxley to establish the requirement to keep the tapes as well as the detail that John Durham has prosecuted two of the only half a dozen cases that have used this Sarb-Ox provision
  • A list of reasons why all the requests that should have covered the tapes purportedly don’t:

_In early May 2003, U.S. District Judge Leonie M. Brinkema told the CIA to reveal whether there were interrogation videos of any witnesses relevant to the case of Zacarias Moussaoui, who was charged as a Sept. 11 conspirator. But that order didn’t cover Zubaydah, who Brinkema ruled was immaterial to the Moussaoui case, so the CIA didn’t tell the court about his interrogation tape.

_A judge in Washington told the agency to safeguard all evidence related to mistreatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay. But Zubaydah and al-Nashiri were held overseas at the time, so the agency regarded the order as not applicable to the tapes of their interrogations.

_A judge in New York told the CIA to search its investigative files for records such as the tapes as part of a Freedom of Information Act suit. But the CIA considered the tapes part of its operational files and therefore exempt from FOIA disclosure and did not reveal their existence to the court.

_The Sept. 11 commission asked for broad ranges of documents, but never issued a formal subpoena that would have required the agency to turn over the tapes.

As such, the story adds valuable insight into the strategies that John Durham may be using to prosecute Jose Rodriguez and others.

But the story buys into certain well-cultivated CIA myths that obscure some other important details of the story:

  • The story replicates CIA’s favored narrative about why the tapes were made–“to prove that interrogators followed broad new rules Washington had laid out”–and why they were destroyed–to protect the identities of officers involved in the interrogation.
  • The story presents Winograd’s justification for destroying the tapes–“the inspector general had completed its investigation and McPherson had verified that the cables accurately summarized the tapes”–without any discussion of the fact that McPherson acknowledged evidence of tampering with the tapes during the IG Report and couldn’t say whether the techniques reflected the guidance given to the torturers.
  • The story ignores all evidence of earlier destruction of evidence and cover-up of criminal acts.
  • This claim–“The White House didn’t learn about the tapes for a year, and even then, it was somewhat by chance”–is either further evidence of a cover-up or simply false.

Let’s start with the primary fiction–that the tapes were designed solely “to prove that interrogators followed broad new rules Washington had laid out.” Aside from indications they were used for research purposes about the efficacy of the methods they were using, this claim suffers from a fundamental anachronism. After all, when the taping started on April 13, 2002, Washington had not yet laid out the broad new rules ultimately used to authorize Abu Zubaydah’s torture on August 1, 2002. Bruce Jessen didn’t even complete his proposed interrogation plan until three days after taping started.

Although, if “Washington” had indeed given Abu Zubaydah’s torturers broad rules three and a half months before the Bybee Memo was signed–reports have said that Alberto Gonzales authorized that treatment on a day to day basis–then that by itself would provide an entirely different logic for why the tapes were made and then destroyed (which is sort of the argument Barry Eisler makes in his book Inside Out).

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Did Jay Bybee Accidentally Admit that CIA Experimented on Abu Zubaydah with Sleep Deprivation?

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Pages 100-102 of the Jay Bybee Transcript are worth reading closely, not least for the way Jay Bybee tries to shift the focus of discussion on torture from “severe physical or mental pain or suffering” to “prolonged mental harm” to avoid the obvious fact that CIA and DOJ approved extended sleep deprivation without having any clue whether it amounted to torture.

But I’m more interested in the retroactive edit on page 102, which seems to admit that CIA had already subjected Abu Zubaydah to 11 days of sleep deprivation by the time Jay Bybee signed the OLC memos on August 1, 2002. Here’s what Bybee originally said:

The CIA did not indicate that they intended to keep Abu Zubaydah awake for 11 days. They said this is what we have done. Here is the best literature on this.

In notes reflecting Bybee’s requested changes, he asked that “They said this is what we have done” be changed to “They said this is what we know.”

Bybee goes onto make a similar comment (though this one he didn’t try to correct). He repeatedly refers to the CIA’s studies.

Nadler: And if you deprive someone of sleep for a lengthy period of time, could you not be causing severe physical pain, too, without prolonged mental harm?

Bybee: We didn’t have any evidence of that from what the CIA told us, and that was based on their studies.

Nadler: What the CIA told us?

Bybee: Not just based on their studies. I’m sorry, based on the literature that they had surveyed.

But both Jason Leopold and I have pointed to reasons to believe they already had subjected Abu Zubaydah to 11 days of sleep deprivation. In other words, there is evidence to suggest that the CIA did, in fact, say, “this is what we have done,” and that they had done their own studies … with the guy whose sleep deprivation they were trying to get approved.

Oops! Jay Bybee may have accidentally told the truth!

Jay Bybee Suggests He Wouldn’t Recuse on Ghost Detainee Case

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When Jerry Nadler asked Jay Bybee whether or not it would legal to disappear someone for three years, the Appeals Court Judge refused to answer, saying he might have to rule on such an issue.

Nadler: Let’s assume you had been asked the question, would it be legal to keep people incommunicado in solitary confinement for over 3 years with no knowledge of where they were being held, with no contact with anyone other than the interrogators for 3 years?

[snip]

Nadler: I’m asking under the laws of the United States generally, is it legal or illegal in your opinion to do what I just described?

Bybee: I don’t think I can answer it. I’m very hesitant to speculate because these are the kinds of questions that may come up before my court. I don’t want to be prejudging.

So the guy whose signature set up our entire detainee abuse regime pretends, at least, that he might rule on the issue of ghost detainees as a Judge.

Anyone need any more reasons why Jay Bybee should no longer serve as an Appeals Court Judge?

Jay Bybee Admits CIA Had No Approval for Water Dousing, Diapering

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On May 26, the House Judiciary Committee interviewed Jay Bybee about the circumstances that went into the Bybee Memos authorizing torture.  Here’s the transcript of that interview.

I’m going to read them in depth, but for now I wanted to point out this detail.

Bybee confirmed that a number of techniques reportedly used on CIA detainees were not approved by OLC:  These techniques include:  Diapering a detainee or forcing a detainee to defecate on himself, forcing a detainee to wear blackout goggles, extended solitary confinement or isolation, hanging a detainee from ceiling hooks, daily beatings, spraying cold water on a detainee, and subjecting a detainee to high-volume music or noise.  (Transcript of May 26, 2010, Interview of former Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee at 75-78, 80-81, 86-90, 98-99.)

Spencer first wrote about the prolonged diapering here. I’ve written extensively about how CIA tried to fudge approval for water dousing (here’s an example, here’s what I wrote on Wednesday).

That is, it has long been fairly clear CIA did some things to detainees they had no authorization for. And in the case of Gul Rahman, one of those techniques (water dousing) killed him. Yet, reports say John Durham is finishing up, with not a squeak about prosecuting this death that–Jay Bybee says–had no OLC authorization.

In other words, this interview has Jay Bybee admitting that the CIA had no authorization for the techniques that contributed to Gul Rahman’s death. John Durham?

You Have a Right to Speedy Trial … Unless They Need to Torture You First

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As we’ve discussed some in comments, Judge Lewis Kaplan rejected Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani’s challenge to his trial for the African embassy bombings on speedy trial grounds. Kaplan rejected Ghailani’s argument that, since the government had held him for five years before charging him, he had been denied the right to a speedy trial. Mostly, Kaplan ruled that, since the government got no advantage from waiting, the delay did not infringe on Ghailani’s rights.

This has been read to suggest that civilian judges would reject a similar challenge on the part of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, meaning one possible barrier to a civilian trial for him, too, has been eliminated. That’s probably true. But it bears note that Kaplan did find government excuses for some of the delays in charging Ghailani unpersuasive.

In sum, the only reason for the delay of this prosecution during the period September 2006 through late February or early March 2007 was the fact that the executive branch decided to hold Ghailani at Guantanamo and not to proceed with the prosecution. The government’s justification for the roughtly one-year delay from February or March 2007 until March 28, 2008 is weak. The time during which the military commission proceedings were pending, March 28, 2008 until January 2009, also weighs against the government because the government and not the defendant was responsible for it. The same is true with respect to the interval from the suspension of the military commission prosecution in January 2009 until Ghailani eventually was produced in this Court.

Now, I think the argument that Kaplan used here will still largely hold sway. But some future judge may well look more skeptically on the current delay in charging KSM. After all, this delay — to let the political winds blow over until such time as KSM can be charged in a civilian court (if that’s what is happening) — is something the government is doing to gain advantages over KSM. Eric Holder has explained unambiguously that one reason he thinks we stand a better chance of trying KSM in civilian courts is to be able to impose the death penalty, and there’s actually a greater risk that KSM’s torture might lead a military commission to compensate for the treatment. The Attorney General, that is, has repeatedly said he wants to try KSM in civilian court because it holds certain advantages over military commissions for the government; and the only possible way to move forward in civlian courts is to wait until either Rahm and Lindsey say it’s okay or until the election passes. I don’t think it’ll happen, but there is an argument to be made that the current delay in charging KSM is designed to gain an advantage and therefore could be judged to violate his right to a speedy trial.

But that’s not what I find most interesting about this ruling. It’s the way Kaplan decides that the two years Ghailani was held — and, Ghailani says, abused — at a black site didn’t violate his right to a speedy trial. Here’s the argument:

The CIA interrogated Ghailani for the first two years in the reasonable belief that Ghailani had important intelligence information. While some of the methods it widely is thought to have used have been questioned and, to whatever extent they actually were used, might give rise to civil claims or even criminal charges, 139 no one denies that the agency’s purpose was to protect the United States from attack.

“It is ‘obvious and unarguable’ that no governmental interest is more compelling than the security of the Nation.” While the Speedy Trial Clause conceivably might have been violated if a prosecution were delayed for the purpose of extended use of appalling or unlawful methods of interrogation even for important national security reasons, that is not the case. There was no prolonged delay here for any such purpose. The two year delay attributable to the CIA interrogation served a valid purpose. The balance of considerations with respect to that period, especially in the light of the lack of substantial prejudice to Ghailani’s Speedy Trial Clause-protected interests, tips heavily in favor of the government.

139 But see Detainee Treatment Act of 2005, 42 USC 2000dd-1(a) (establishing qualified defense for government personnel charged with offenses or liability in connection with officially authorized operational practices “that involve detention and interrogation of aliens who the President or his designees have determined are believed to be engaged in or associated with international terrorist activity that poses a serious, continuing threat to the United States”).

This is a lovely example of the muddlespeak one has to resort to to make an argument that is not entirely persuasive. “While some of the methods it widely is thought to have used have been questioned”? That construction is all the more ridiculous given that a few of the documents Kaplan cites on torture–like the Bradbury CAT memo, the CIA’s Combined Techniques document, and a version of the OMS guidelines are publicly available. And how does Kaplan decide that Ghailani’s trial hasn’t been delayed just for torture? Because John McCain subsequently declared it retroactively legal?

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Right Wing Finally Talking about Rule of Law

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Don’t get me wrong. I’m happy that–after all these years–someone on the right is calling out Presidents Bush and Obama on their abuse of power (watch the video to hear Andrew Napolitano complain about Obama’s targeting of Anwar al-Awlaki).

Nader: Is that what you mean also about throwing people in jail without charges violating habeas corpus?

Napolitano: Well that is so obviously a violation of the natural law, the natural right to be brought before a neutral arbiter within moments of the government taking your freedom away from you. And the Constitution itself, as the Supreme Court in the Boumediene case pretty much said, wherever the government goes, the Constitution goes with it and wherever the Constitution goes are the rights of the Constitution as a guarantee and habeas corpus cannot be suspended by the president ever. It can only be suspended by the Congress in times of rebellion which in read Milligan says meaning rebellion of such magnitude that judges can’t get into their court houses. That has not happened in American history.

So what President Bush did with the suspension of habeas corpus, with the whole concept of Guantanamo Bay, with the whole idea that he could avoid and evade federal laws, treaties, federal judges and the Constitution was blatantly unconstitutional and is some cases criminal.

Nader: What’s the sanction for President Bush and Vice President Cheney?

Napolitano: There’s been no sanction except what history will say about them.

Nader: What should be the sanctions?

Napolitano: They should have been indicted. They absolutely should have been indicted for torturing, for spying, for arresting without warrants.

I agree with everything Napolitano says and I’m glad he’s pitching a book saying it. Welcome to the lonely battle of fighting for the rule of law.

But the time for the right wing to make these arguments was probably 2004, not 2010.