Holder's Letter: How Non-Obvious the Obvious Has Become

[morningfog]

* * *

Holder said that he was writing to counter fears expressed in Snowden’s asylum application. What is striking, though, reading his letter, is how non-obvious these very obvious things have become. The United States has tortured, as much as the Obama Administration has disowned the practice. It has played fast and loose with the question of venues, keeping both American and non-American citizens out of the civilian courts where they belong. In just the past few weeks, lawyers for detainees at Guantánamo had to fight to keep from having their clients’ right to counsel undermined by the imposition of gratuitous genital searches before even simple contacts like phone calls to lawyers. (The Obama Administration did say Friday that it would begin the process of repatriating two Algerian prisoners; they are among eighty-six who are being held even though they’ve been cleared for release.)

Nor is it far-fetched to wonder what penalties or charges Snowden might ultimately face. Bradley Manning, whose case bears some similarity to Snowden’s, is being court-martialed for “aiding the enemy.” This crime can, in some cases, carry the death penalty, although prosecutors said from the outset that they would not seek it in Manning’s case. It is a deeply troubling charge, one that harms press freedom, because the prosecution’s theory is that Manning aided the enemy by releasing information that was published in places where people who don’t like the United States were able to read it. Without real modification, this could apply to any journalist-published secrets that the government considers harmful. The charge was also the basis upon which the prosecutor, in closing arguments, called Manning a traitor.

And what about the Obama Administration’s legal finding that it can order the targeted killing of an American abroad who is working with Al Qaeda or affiliated organizations?

Snowden’s revelations show how dangerous it is when one step of legal reasoning after another is taken, without a sense of where it all leads—without a sense of what it does to those constitutional rights that Holder gestures toward as self-evidently protective. There are now so many threads to our national-security jurisprudence, and not enough discussion about how they might be knotted up. Charlie Savage, in a piece in the Times on Friday, describes how the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court has, as it stands, been shaped above all by the legal imagination of Chief Justice John Roberts, who has named all of its members. What was once a check on illegal domestic wiretapping has become a workshop where words are re-defined and precedents are strung together, all out of public view—to the point where one can get a letter from the Attorney General, written in plain language, and not have any idea what it means.
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/closeread/2013/07/holder-we-wont-torture-or-kill-snowden.html?mobify=0

[msongs]

1. a "government" that routinely murders people w/trial cannot be trusted nt

[Laelth]

2. k&r for exposure. n/t

-Laelth

[Catherina]

3. No administration should be permitted to operate above or beyond the law

“No administration should be permitted to operate above or beyond the law as they have done in this respect”

Congressman Nadler, From A Bipartisan Warning on Surveillance


Holder has been a walking disaster ever since his days working for Chiquita to hide their massive international crimes.

Lawyer for Chiquita in Colombia Death Squad Case May be Next U.S. Attorney General

11/6/08

In its recent report entitled, "Breaking the Grip? Obstacles to Justice for Paramilitary Mafias in Colombia," Human Rights Watch (HRW) had specific recommendations for the U.S. Department of Justice. Specifically, HRW recommended that, in order to assist with the process of ending the ties between the Colombian government and paramilitary death squads, the U.S. Department of Justice should, among other things, "create meaningful legal incentives for paramilitary leaders [a number of whom have already been extradited to the U.S.] to fully disclose information about atrocities and name all Colombian or foreign officials, business or individuals who may have facilitated their criminal activities," and "collaborate actively with the efforts of Colombian justice officials who are investigating paramilitary networks in Colombia by sharing relevant information possible and granting them access to paramilitary leaders in U.S. custody."

Do not expect these recommendations to be carried forward if Eric Holder decides to forgo his lucrative corporate law practice at Covington & Burling and accept the U.S. Attorney General position for which many believe he is the top contender. Eric Holder would have a troubling conflict of interest in carrying out this work in light of his current work as defense lawyer for Chiquita Brands international in a case in which Colombian plaintiffs seek damages for the murders carried out by the AUC paramilitaries - a designated terrorist organization. Chiquita has already admitted in a criminal case that it paid the AUC around $1.7 million in a 7-year period and that it further provided the AUC with a cache of machine guns as well.

Indeed, Holder himself, using his influence as former deputy attorney general under the Clinton Administration, helped to negotiate Chiquita's sweetheart deal with the Justice Department in the criminal case against Chiquita. Under this deal, no Chiquita official received any jail time. Indeed, the identity of the key officials involved in the assistance to the paramilitaries were kept under seal and confidential. In the end, Chiquita was fined a mere $25 million which it has been allowed to pay over a 5-year period. This is incredible given the havoc wreaked by Chiquita's aid to these Colombian death squads.

According to Mario Iguaran, the Attorney General of Colombia, Chiquita's payments to the AUC paramilitaries led to the murder of 4000 civilians in the banana region of Colombia and furthered the growth of the paramilitaries throughout Colombia and their violent takeover of numerous Colombian regions. Iguaran, in response to the claims of both Chiquita and Eric Holder himself that Chiquita was somehow forced to pay "protection" to the paramilitaries (see, Washington Post and Conde Nast Portfolio), stated unequivocally that "this was not payment of extortion money. It was support for an illegal armed group whose methods included murder." See, Christian Science Monitor, "Chiquita Case Puts Big Firms on Notice."

...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dan-kovalik/lawyer-for-chiquita-in-co_b_141919.html

There was outrage here when Holder was named to that position. It was for a reason. Holder is nothing but a disaster for this administration.