Scott Horton discusses the latest reports about the pending appointment of a torture special prosecutor with Keith Olbermann. Last week, British judges revealed that the British Secret Services fed questions to the CIA in the full knowledge that the Agency was systematically using torture in interrogations; a clear violation of international law. Meanwhile BBC Newsweek airs "Confessions of an Uzbek KGB officer". Shortly after 11.00 mins in the video Yakobov refuses to comment more on Secret Rendition claiming his life could be in endangered. In a Sept. interview Yakubov's most interesting evidence is that he accompanied a CIA man to an interrogation, and that the CIA man was actually in the room during the torture of a detainee.
bradblog attempts to unravel the web of deceipt.
posted by adamvasco on Aug 12, 2009 - 11 comments

Craig Murray (Previously: 1 2) Attends the Formal Evidence Session on UK Complicity in Torture on Tuesday 28 April 1.45pm UK time. You can (hopefully) watch it on Parliament TV. If you want to have a good look at UK / US complicity in torture, this might be a good place to start... Please note he has said "There is absolutely no way I am going to kill myself. Just thought it might be wise to get that out in public!". Hopefully statements like that won't be necessary.
posted by debord on Apr 28, 2009 - 9 comments

Interrogation techniques used by the CIA on al-Qaeda suspects "constituted torture", according to a report by the International Red Cross.
posted by shoesfullofdust on Mar 16, 2009 - 27 comments

Obama's Justice Department has endorsed its predecessor's claims that the details of the extraordinary rendition program are "state secrets."
posted by Kirth Gerson on Feb 9, 2009 - 148 comments

The Fed Who Blew the Whistle: Is he a hero or a criminal? Three years after the New York Times first revealed the NSA's warrantless wiretapping program, whistleblower Thomas Tamm has acknowledged his role in making it public. [Via]
posted by homunculus on Dec 16, 2008 - 51 comments

By its own admission the US government is currently detaining at least 26,000 people without trial in secret prisons, and information suggests up to 80,000 have been ‘through the system’ since 2001.

even 200 years ago, there was a general insistence that prisoners be charged with and convicted of a crime before they could be condemned to the lower decks of an aging naval ship.

( prison hulks previously ).
posted by adamvasco on Jun 4, 2008 - 43 comments

The CIA's Odd Man Out: CIA station chief Bob Lady coordinated the secret kidnapping of Islamic militant Abu Omar in Milan and Omar's "extreme rendition" to Egypt where he was tortured. Italy indicted various CIA agents; Lady is on the run in Central America, abandoned by the agency. The twist: Lady opposed the mission all along. And Abu Omar will probably end up with Lady's home in the foothills of the Alps. [more inside]
posted by msalt on Apr 22, 2008 - 38 comments

US has right to kidnap any defendant, anywhere, anytime, says it's UK lawyer. Until now it was commonly assumed that US law permitted kidnapping only in the “extraordinary rendition” of terrorist suspects. The American government has for the first time made it clear in a British court that the law applies to anyone, British or otherwise, suspected of a crime by Washington. [more inside]
posted by dash_slot- on Dec 1, 2007 - 75 comments

Depicting Europe, an essay in The London Review of Books by UCLA history professor Perry Anderson, criticizes the European Union as a neo-liberal economist's wet dream and unthinking lackey of the United States. [more inside]
posted by Kattullus on Sep 19, 2007 - 21 comments

The Black Sites. "A rare look inside the C.I.A.’s secret interrogation program."
posted by kirkaracha on Aug 6, 2007 - 66 comments

Missing presumed tortured More than 7,000 prisoners have been captured in America's war on terror. Just 700 ended up in Guantanamo Bay. Between extraordinary rendition to foreign jails and disappearance into the CIA's "black sites", what happened to the rest?
posted by i_am_a_Jedi on Nov 19, 2006 - 22 comments

CIA Officer Fired for Leaking Classified Info to Media Newsfilter. The president, we are told, leaked via Libby a secret to the press. That is ok. The leak was telling the press that laws were being broken--FISA subverted--so that undermining national laws becomes a crime only when it is revealed? A CIA officer has been relieved of his duty after being caught leaking classified information to the media. Citing the Privacy Act, the CIA would not provide any details about the officer's identity or assignments.
posted by Postroad on Apr 21, 2006 - 36 comments

Cofer Black, Director of the CIA Counterterrorism center until May 2002 said before the 9/11 commission: “All I want to say is that there was ‘before’ 9/11 and ‘after’ 9/11. After 9/11 the gloves come off… ‘No Limits’ aggressive, relentless, worldwide pursuit of any terrorist who threatens us is the only way to go…” Since that time there have been allegations of abduction and indefinite detention in secret prisons abroad , abuse in prisons within the U.S. and the suppression of evidence of coercion overseas in confessions in U.S. courts. (Ahmed Omar Abu Ali prev. here). In addition to Amnesty Int’l, it’s getting the U.S. some UN attention as well.
posted by Smedleyman on Apr 7, 2006 - 30 comments

"It wouldn't surprise me if we paid rewards"
--As part of the AP's receipt of transcripts of the millitary tribunals in Guantanamo, multiple reports of our allies using money the US gave them to buy "terrorists" for shipment there.
..."When I was in jail, they said I needed to pay them money and if I didn't pay them, they'd make up wrong accusations about me and sell me to the Americans and I'd definitely go to Cuba," he told the tribunal. "After that I was held for two months and 20 days in their detention, so they could make wrong accusations about me and my (censored), so they could sell us to you." Another prisoner said he was on his way to Germany in 2001 when he was captured and sold for "a briefcase full of money" then flown to Afghanistan before being sent to Guantanamo....
posted by amberglow on Jun 1, 2005 - 14 comments

Outsourcing Torture The secret history of America’s “extraordinary rendition” program.
posted by y2karl on Feb 8, 2005 - 16 comments

Red Cross Finds Detainee Abuse in Guantánamo   The International Committee of the Red Cross has charged in confidential reports to the United States government that the American military has intentionally used psychological and sometimes physical coercion "tantamount to torture" on prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The finding that the handling of prisoners detained and interrogated at Guantánamo amounted to torture came after a visit by a Red Cross inspection team that spent most of last June in Guantánamo. The team of humanitarian workers, which included experienced medical personnel, also asserted that some doctors and other medical workers at Guantánamo were participating in planning for interrogations, in what the report called "a flagrant violation of medical ethics." Doctors and medical personnel conveyed information about prisoners' mental health and vulnerabilities to interrogators, the report said, sometimes directly, but usually through a group called the Behavioral Science Consultation Team, or B.S.C.T. The team, known informally as Biscuit, is composed of psychologists and psychological workers who advise the interrogators, the report said. From the Red Cross : The ICRC's work at Guantanamo Bay  -  Related: From Association of the Bar of the City of New York, a pdf: Torture by Proxy: International and Domestic Law Applicable to Extraordinary Renditions-- Representative Edward J.] Markey pledges battle on rendition practice
posted by y2karl on Nov 30, 2004 - 85 comments

"Rendition" is the State Department legal term for when they ship (its a lot like extradition minus due process ) Al Qaida/Taliban POWs to a friendly 3rd country such as Egypt or Jordan for questioning. "Why not just question them in Guantanamo" you ask? Thats because in some countries, interrogation is less regulated than it is on US soil. Neat, huh?
posted by BentPenguin on Mar 14, 2002 - 52 comments