friday reads

ACLU: Memos authorized torture

As long as CIA agents could convince themselves they were not deliberately inflicting severe pain or suffering on detainees, they were free to do virtually anything in their questioning of suspected terrorists, including waterboarding. Furthermore, the agents' belief they weren't in fact torturing their captives didn't even need to be "reasonable."

These are the implications of a controversial August 2002 memo from the Justice Department to the CIA that was released Thursday. The American Civil Liberties Union obtained several internal Bush administration documents it says authorizes the CIA to torture detainees.

“These documents supply further evidence, if any were needed, that the Justice Department authorized the CIA to torture prisoners in its custody,” Jameel Jaffer, Director of the ACLU National Security Project, said in a news release. “The Justice Department twisted the law, and in some cases ignored it altogether, in order to permit interrogators to use barbaric methods that the U.S. once prosecuted as war crimes.”

An Argentine ex-army officer has been sentenced to life in prison for the 1977 kidnapping, torture and murder of four leftwing activists.


U.S. foreclosure filings more than doubled in the second quarter from a year earlier as falling home prices left borrowers owing more on mortgages than their properties were worth.


Hullabaloo: Political Participation - The Real Fascism


Scott Horton: New Allegations of Prosecutorial Misconduct in the Siegelman Case


Just four days after escaping a federal minimum-security work camp, Internet "Spam King" Eddie Davidson fatally shot his wife and child and wounded a teenage girl before turning the gun on himself.


Navy chaplain faces rape, assault charges.