Saturday, November 03, 2007
PEN to Senate: 'insist on a clear, unequivocal renunciation of the use of torture'
We are writing on behalf of the 3,400 members of PEN American Center, and on behalf of our literary and journalistic colleagues around the world—many of whom practice their professions shadowed by regimes that routinely violate international prohibitions against torture—to implore you to insist on a clear, unequivocal renunciation of the use of torture and cruel and inhumane treatment by the United States as a precondition to the confirmation of Michael B. Mukasey to serve as attorney general of the United States.
Like many other human rights organizations, we are extremely disturbed by Judge Mukasey’s failure to acknowledge that waterboarding is a form of torture and by his apparent endorsement of the administration’s position that the President can authorize individuals to violate domestic and international laws, including prohibitions against torture and cruel and inhumane punishment. While the legal precariousness of these positions should be all too evident, we would remind the Committee that the international prohibition against torture in particular is a peremptory, jus cogens norm that cannot be abrogated under any circumstances.
That the United States has in fact abrogated that norm is now graphically and inarguably clear to the world. It will only further damage our international standing to endorse the appointment of Judge Mukasey or anyone else who fails to call torture by its name, renounce the mistreatment of detainees, or reject the legal arguments by which the Administration has sought, impermissibly, to justify these well-documented violations.
It will also undermine the efforts of—and in some cases even directly imperil—colleagues of ours who are struggling to end the scourge of torture and cruel and inhumane treatment in their countries. At PEN, we have seen increasing evidence that the behavior of the United States is posing new dangers for human rights champions around the world. In Tunisia, for example, lawyer and human rights activist Mohammed Abbou was arrested on March 1, 2005 for publishing an article comparing the torture inflicted routinely on prisoners in Tunisia to abuses carried out by U.S. soldiers in Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. He was sentenced to 18 months in prison for “having published information that would disturb public order” and for “insulting the judiciary” and served fourteen months before international pressure led to his release this past summer.
Congress, which ratified the Convention Against Torture, has not done enough to end the abuse of detainees and eliminate the ambiguity in current U.S. policies on torture and cruel and inhumane treatment, and it further clouded the issue by including a wholly unjustifiable immunity provision in the Military Commissions Act last year. The attorney general confirmation process offers an important opportunity to make our country’s position clear. It is right to demand that Judge Mukasey clarify his remarks, and it is imperative that the Senate approve his nomination only if he rejects the Administration’s embrace of abusive practices and its flawed and dangerous legal rationales.
Sincerely,
Francine Prose
President
PEN American Center
Larry Siems
Director of Freedom to Write and International Programs
PEN American Center
Sending his cancer a signal
Friday, November 02, 2007
Excerpt from the intro to Naomi Wolf's 'The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot'
"...A breather is unearned; we can't simply relax now. The laws that drive these pressures are still on the books. The people who have a vested interest in a less open society may be in a moment of formal political regrouping; but their funds are just as massive as before, their strategic thinking unchanged, and their strategy now is to regroup so that next time their majority will be permanent.
All of us -- Republicans, Democrats, Independents, American citizens -- have little time to repeal the laws and roll back the forces that can bring about the end of the American system we have inherited from the Founders -- a system that has protected our freedom for over 200 years.
I have written this warning because our country -- the democracy our young patriots expect to inherit -- is in the process of being altered forever. History has a great deal to teach us about what is happening right now -- what has happened since 2001 and what could well unfold after the 2008 election. But fewer and fewer of us have read much about the history of the mid-twentieth century -- or about the ways the Founders set up our freedoms to save us from the kinds of tyranny they knew could emerge in the future. High school students, college students, recent graduates, activists from all walks of life, have a sense that something overwhelming has been going on. But they have lacked a primer to brief them on these themes and put the pieces together, so it is hard for them to know how urgent the situation is, let alone what they need to do.
Americans expect to have freedom around us just as we expect to have air to breathe, so we have only limited understanding of the furnaces of repression that the Founders knew intimately. Few of us spend much time thinking about how "the system" they put in place protects our liberties. We spend even less time, considering how dictators in the past have broken down democracies or quelled pro-democracy uprisings. We take our American liberty for granted the way we take our natural resources for granted, seeing both, rather casually, as being magically self-replenishing. We have not noticed how vulnerable either resource is until very late in the game, when systems start to falter. We have been slow to learn that liberty, like nature, demands a relationship with us in order for it to continue to sustain us..."
~ Link ~
airbase being prepped for Iran attack
"...The US is secretly upgrading special stealth bomber hangars on the British island protectorate of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean in preparation for strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities, according to military sources.
The improvement of the B1 Spirit jet infrastructure coincides with an "urgent operational need" request for £44m to fit racks to the long-range aircraft.
That would allow them to carry experimental 15-ton Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) bombs designed to smash underground bunkers buried as much as 200ft beneath the surface through reinforced concrete.
One MOP - known as Big Blu - has already been tested successfully at the US Air Force proving ground at White Sands in New Mexico. Tenders have now gone out for a production model to be ready for use in the next nine months..." ~ continue reading ~
Ancient sea travellers had heads in the clouds
told through folklore - that their ancestors were among the most
skilled navigators in history.
Archaeologists and historians have likened their ability to find new
islands in the vastness of the Pacific as akin to sending a rocket
into space and hoping it will hit a planet.
Dr Marshall Weisler, of the University of Queensland, said the journey
between Hawaii and Tahiti "now stands as the longest uninterrupted
maritime voyage in human prehistory".
He said it was "mind-boggling" how Polynesian settlers found their way
from one speck of land to another and back again, colonising the last
uninhabited parts of the planet.
They are believed to have used signs such as tides, the presence of
driftwood and the flight of seabirds, which return to roost on land at
night.
They also closely observed the underside of clouds, which reflect
whatever lies beneath them - a darker tinge indicates the presence of
land..."
the "Do Not Track" list proposal
Plan Would Limit Tracking of Web Surfing - New York Times:
called for creation of a "Do Not Track List," that would
prohibit advertisers from tracking online movements of
consumers.
Similar to the popular Do Not Call telephone lists, the
Internet proposal comes as online advertising revenues are
growing rapidly, providing critical revenue to startups and
Web giants such as Google Inc. and Yahoo Inc.
Online ad revenue is forecast to more than double to $44
billion in 2011 from $17 billion in 2006, according to
eMarketer.com.
Computer users should be notified when their Web surfing is
tracked by online advertisers and Web publishers, argue the
Consumer Federation of America, the World Privacy Forum and
the Center for Democracy and Technology, among other groups in
a coalition promoting the idea.
Rather than burying privacy policies in fine print, companies
should also disclose them more fully and provide easier ways
to opt out, the groups said.
The organizations submitted the proposals to the Federal Trade
Commission, ahead of the consumer watchdog agency's workshop
on Nov. 1-2 to study the increasing use of tracking technology
to target online ads...
