Hissyspit
Hissyspit's JournalWikiLeaks Suspect Wins Battle Over US Documents
Source: AFP
WikiLeaks suspect wins battle over US documents
(AFP) – 1 hour ago
FORT MEADE, Maryland — A US military judge ordered prosecutors Monday to share more documents with WikiLeaks suspect Bradley Manning after defense lawyers accused them of hiding information that could help their client's case.
For months, Manning's defense team has demanded access to reports by government agencies, including the CIA, that assessed the effect of the leak of classified documents to the WikiLeaks website.
Manning is accused of passing on a massive trove of files to WikiLeaks but his lawyers believe the reports will show the alleged disclosures had no major effect on the country's national security.
Judge Denise Lind ruled that government prosecutors must provide "damage assessment" reports from the CIA, the State Department, the FBI, the Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive (Oncix) and other documents that were relevant for the defense.
Read more: http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gat_yPBw1ftIBd0TQIsGoEuPJ5Tg?docId=CNG.e2dddb0ced039a6ca22b2d8bbfecc90d.991
David Shuster: No Health Care Ruling Today
@DavidShuster: No more opinions today from SCOTUS. So, there will no NO ruling today on Obama/health care. @takeactionnews @weactradio
Reuters: U.S. Supreme Court Upholds Key Part Of Tough Arizona Immigration Law
Source: Reuters
Will update.
No link yet.
@DavidShuster: At SCOTUS, good day for progressives on AZ immigration law. Most of SB1070 has been thrown out. Ruling:
http://t.co/euuwpp9e
Tom Tomorrow: Unspeakable
DailyKos Link: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/06/25/1102290/-Unspeakable
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The GOP Is Unbelievably Full of Shit on Executive Privilege
http://www.gawker.com/5920526/the-gop-is-unbelievably-full-of-shit-on-executive-privilegeFAST AND FURIOUS
The GOP Is Unbelievably Full of Shit on Executive Privilege
By John Cook, Jun 22, 2012 3:35 PM
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The Fox News wing of the Republican Party (which is to say, the Republican Party), has concluded that Barack Obama is a 21st Century Richard Nixon because he conjured a dreaded, wicked trick called executive privilege to cover up his manifest crimes. Hey, only Republicans are allowed to do that!
- snip -
Sure, Bush Invoked Executive Privilege, But Never to Cover Up Crimes
"As a conservative, I support the idea of executive privilege," Hannity said. "[T]here has been court precedent on this that there is no legitimate claim to executive privilege if this is about covering up any type of wrongdoing."
Bullshit. No on has articulated precisely what crime Obama is covering up here. Plenty of people are talking about lying to Congress, but the February 4, 2012 lie isn't covered by the privilege being asserted. But whatever. Let's look at when Bush invoked it: Twice to keep his aides from testifying about why he fired seven U.S. Attorneys and whether political considerations played a role—a scandal that resulted in the resignations of nine DOJ officials including the attorney general himself. And once to keep from handing over documents about a criminal investigation into the Valerie Plame leak.
Those cases had abundant evidence—or at least enough to raise a reasonable suspicion—of potential wrongdoing. There's nothing that even remotely rises to the same level in Fast and Furious.
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CIA Allegedly Ordered ‘Torture Cage’ at Secret Black Site Prison
Source: ABC News / Raw Story
CIA allegedly ordered ‘torture cage’ at secret black site prison
By Muriel Kane
Friday, June 22, 2012 20:41 EDT
A Polish official claims that prosecutors in Krakow have proof the CIA wanted a special “torture cage” to be constructed at one of its secret “black site” prisons.
According to ABC News, the proof consists of a document showing that “a local contractor was asked to build a cage at Stare Kiekuty, a Polish army base used as a CIA prison for al Qaeda terror suspects in 2002 and 2003.”
Senator Jozef Pinior told the Polish paper Gazeta Wyborcza that he had not seen the construction order himself but that the prosecutor’s office has a copy of it. “In a state with rights, people are not kept in cages,” Pinior stated.
He said he was sure the cage was intended for humans, since there could have been no other purpose for it, and that a cage is “non-standard equipment” for a prison unless “torture was used there.”
Read more: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/06/22/cia-allegedly-ordered-torture-cage-at-secret-black-site-prison/
Glenn Greenwald in Guardian UK: "Julian Assange's Right to Asylum"
http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/12015-focus-julian-assanges-right-to-asylum- snip -
The evidence that the US seeks to prosecute and extradite Assange is substantial. There is no question that the Obama justice department has convened an active grand jury to investigate whether WikiLeaks violated the draconian Espionage Act of 1917. Key senators from President Obama's party, including Senate intelligence committee chairwoman Dianne Feinstein, have publicly called for his prosecution under that statute. A leaked email from the security firm Stratfor – hardly a dispositive source, but still probative – indicated that a sealed indictment has already been obtained against him. Prominent American figures in both parties have demanded Assange's lifelong imprisonment, called him a terrorist, and even advocated his assassination.
For several reasons, Assange has long feared that the US would be able to coerce Sweden into handing him over far more easily than if he were in Britain. For one, smaller countries such as Sweden are generally more susceptible to American pressure and bullying.
For another, that country has a disturbing history of lawlessly handing over suspects to the US. A 2006 UN ruling found Sweden in violation of the global ban on torture for helping the CIA render two suspected terrorists to Egypt, where they were brutally tortured (both individuals, asylum-seekers in Sweden, were ultimately found to be innocent of any connection to terrorism and received a monetary settlement from the Swedish government).
Perhaps most disturbingly of all, Swedish law permits extreme levels of secrecy in judicial proceedings and oppressive pre-trial conditions, enabling any Swedish-US transactions concerning Assange to be conducted beyond public scrutiny. Ironically, even the US State Department condemned Sweden's "restrictive conditions for prisoners held in pretrial custody", including severe restrictions on their communications with the outside world.
Assange's fear of ending up in the clutches of the US is plainly rational and well-grounded. One need only look at the treatment over the last decade of foreign nationals accused of harming American national security to know that's true; such individuals are still routinely imprisoned for lengthy periods without any charges or due process. Or consider the treatment of Bradley Manning, accused of leaking to WikiLeaks: a formal UN investigation found that his pre-trial conditions of severe solitary confinement were "cruel, inhuman and degrading", and he now faces capital charges of aiding al-Qaida. The Obama administration's unprecedented obsession with persecuting whistleblowers and preventing transparency – what even generally supportive, liberal magazines call "Obama's war on whistleblowers" – makes those concerns all the more valid.
MORE[p]
Declassified Document Contradicts Cheney’s Claim of Iraqi Connection to 9/11
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/06/20/declassified-document-contradicts-cheneys-claim-of-iraqi-connection-to-911Declassified document contradicts Cheney’s claim of Iraqi connection to 9/11
By Stephen C. Webster
Wednesday, June 20, 2012 11:35 EDT
A document declassified this week by the National Security Archive reveals that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) delivered a briefing to the Bush administration which directly contradicts former Vice President Dick Cheney’s claim that 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta visited an Iraqi intelligence official in Prague.
The document (PDF), dated Dec. 1, 2001 and delivered to the White House on the 8th, claims that Atta “did not travel to the Czech Republic on 31 May 2000,” and adds that “the individual who attempted to enter the Czech Republic on 31 May 2000… was not the Atta who attacked the World Trade Center on 11 September 2001.”
Despite this briefing, just days later on Dec. 9, 2001, Cheney told the late Tim Russert, host of Meet the Press, that the meeting in Prague had been “pretty well confirmed.”
- snip -
Even after the CIA had again refuted the link between Iraq and the 9/11 hijacker, Cheney still repeated it during a Sept. 2003 appearance on Meet the Press. Shortly after Russert confronted him with polling that showed as much as 69 percent of Americans believed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was involved in the Sept. 11 attacks, Cheney responded:
- snip -
The problem with that now appears to be that the vice president did know the intelligence was bogus, but continued repeating it to support his argument for war. No link was ever established between the Iraqi regime and the attacks of Sept. 11.
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The New Citizens United Pledge Of Allegiance
From Facebook, natch. Apologies if this has been posted before.
Assange Has Requested Political Asylum & Is Under Protection of Ecuardorian Embassy in London
Source: Reuters
@wikileaks: ALERT: Julian Assange has requested political asylum and is under the protection of the Ecuadorian embassy in London
https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/215152161502412801
Ecuador says WikiLeaks' Assange seeks asylum
Tue Jun 19, 2012 2:44pm EDT
QUITO (Reuters) - WikiLeaks' founder Julian Assange has asked for political asylum in Ecuador and officials in the South American nation are considering his request, its foreign minister said on Tuesday.
"Ecuador is studying and analyzing the request," Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino told reporters in Quito.
Assange faces extradition to Sweden for questioning over alleged sex crimes after Britain's top court said last week that it had rejected a legal request to reconsider his case.
Read more: http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSBRE85I1EI20120619?irpc=932
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