March 2022 Archives

"For some lawmakers charged with upholding the Constitution, advocating on behalf of clients held indefinitely in horrific conditions in an overseas military prison is apparently disqualifying," writes Yvette Borja.

The Supreme Court has repeatedly deferred to the wishes of the executive branch regarding the rights of people imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay. Department of Defense torture techniques approved by UC Berkeley professor John Yoo included forced nudity and humiliation, prolonged stress positions, and sleep deprivation. 

"The justices have also demonstrated troubling levels of ignorance--or perhaps apathy--about the real-world consequences of their decisions for people whose cases have languished in federal courts for years without resolution," charges Borja. "Jackson's perspective as an advocate for people whom the government deems disposable is, to say the very least, overdue."

 A secret 2008 CIA inspector general report has been published for the first time, documents Spencer Ackerman, as part of a court filing by his lawyers aimed at getting him an independent medical examination.

10 specific coercive interrogation techniques--"the attention grasp, walling, the facial hold, the facial slap (insult slap), cramped confinement, wall standing, stress positions, sleep deprivation, use of diapers, and use of insects" with the verbal approval of waterboarding given two days later--subsequently referred to as the CIA's "enhanced interrogation techniques," were drafted by Berkeley Law's "Torture Professor" John Yoo. His employment continues to discredit UC administration of ethical oversight.

John Eastman conceded that his scheme represented violation of the Electoral Count Act but urged Mike Pence to go ahead anyway, calling it a "minor violation." 

So "minor" that House counsel Douglas Letter quipped "It was so minor it could have changed the entire course of our democracy. It could have meant the popularly elected president could have been thwarted from taking office. That was what Dr Eastman was urging."

Jerry Elsea also hates it when lawyers spin lies for presidents, especially when their "legal" advice "shreds the Constitution and shoves the presidency toward autocracy... 

"When President Biden reviews the election overthrow attempt, will he bring the plotters to justice? Or will he do as Obama did with those who had plunged into the dark domain of torture, simply saying, 'Look forward, not backward?'

"A weaseling out would signal further erosion of justice and a move toward autocracy under a reinstalled Trump or one his acolytes. With the help of crafty attorneys, of course."

* i.e. those "enhanced interrogation techniques" drafted by "Torture Professor" John Yoo

An image drawn by Abu Zubaydah, a prisoner at Guantánamo Bay, shows how the C.I.A. applied an approved torture technique called "cramped confinement." Courtesy Mark P. Denbeaux  

On March 3, 2022 in a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court dismissed Abu Zubaydah's petition, reversing the Ninth Circuit's 2019 decision, requesting the testimony of psychologists James Mitchell and John Jessen, whom the CIA hired to orchestrate his torture at a secret CIA prison ("CIA black site") in Poland from December 2002 until September 2003, Marjorie Cohn reported yesterday. Zubaydah was transferred to other CIA black sites before being sent to Guantánamo in 2006, where he remains today with no charges against him.