Candidates urged to sign anti-torture pledge

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Reuters

Candidates urged to sign anti-torture pledge
Tue Jul 31, 2007 4:34PM EDT

By Claudia Parsons

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A coalition of civil rights groups launched a campaign on Tuesday urging presidential candidates to sign an "American Freedom Pledge" rejecting torture, detention without trial and warrantless wire-tapping.

Around 130,000 people have signed a petition of the American Freedom Campaign, which bills itself as a bipartisan effort to defend democracy from "abuses of power" under U.S. President George W. Bush.

"By trading our liberties for a false sense of security, the president has granted himself the power of tyrants," said Vincent Warren, executive director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, a legal group that has frequently challenged Bush's counterterrorism policies in court.

The White House has denied accusations that it condones torture and repudiated internal administration documents recommending a definition of torture that critics called extreme.



Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSN3125382220070731?feedType=RSS

[PATRICK]

1. Sounds a bit awkward

when you consider the first action of the crooks was to toss the paper, the pledges. if one could simply trust these leaders this striving for more paper to affirm the old paper would not have a flavor of naivety. What is needed is actually some committment to bring the crooks to actual justice to reaffirm old paper. Weak tea.

[damntexdem]

2. Oh, darn! I thought maybe this was a pledge about political 'messages' next year:

no more torture of the American electorate.