Canada Puts the U.S. on Its Terror Watch List

No joke. All those tortures really add up quick, don't they?

UPDATE: Erm, not "Terror Watch List," but "Torture Watch List". My mistake. But honestly, torture is a form of terrorism, especially when it is being done to foreign nationals.

Another Blow to Bush

A federal judge has struck down the provision in the PATRIOT Act allowing the federal government to demand the internet records of Americans from internet service providers without notifying their customers or obtaining a court order. The judge rightfully ruled that the provision "offends the fundamental Constitutional principles of checks and balances and separation of powers".

This is another example of the judiciary working to restrain the authoritarian impulses of the Bush administration, despite Congress' unwillingness to do so. I'm sure the ruling will be challenged, and will probably end up in the Supreme Court. But the basic principle is sound: the President ought not be able to spy on American citizens without oversight.

Thomas Barnett Blogging

Barnett begins his column this week by citing Krueger's study "What Makes a Terrorist," ties that to the idea that the way to fight global terrorism is to foster the growth and strengthening of the middle classes in developing countries, esp. those with authoritarian governments (i.e. almost all of the MidEast). The upshot:

In the end, it’s true that politics explains terrorism, but likewise that economics explains politics.

This long war requires long efforts, not seductive shortcuts.

The United States should be in the business of applying both its hard and soft power assets toward the same end: defending and extending globalization’s spread. Feed stomachs and wallets first, and then hearts and minds will follow.

Elsewhere, Barnett is interviewed at Time's China blog. Nothing especially revelatory, but still interesting.

Giuliani hires Podhoretz

Rudy Giuliani must be opposed at all costs. He has just hired Norman Podhoretz, the man who wants to unilaterally bomb a country -- Iran -- which has not provoked us to war.

The man who said of the Iraq war: "an amazing success." He waves his fist and declaims, "There were WMD, and they were shipped to Syria. ... This picture of a country in total chaos with no security is false. It has been a triumph. It couldn't have gone better." He wants more wars, and fast. He is "certain" Bush will bomb Iran, and "thank God" for that.

Yes. He said that Iraq "couldn't have gone better". It was bad enough that Giuliani enthusiastically supports torture in violation of domestic and international law, saying things like: "I would tell the people who had to do the interrogation to use every method they can think of" when asked if he would support the use of waterboarding, a technique perfected by the Khmer Rouge, and used by the Imperial Japanese and Waffen SS in WWII. That was bad enough to disqualify him from holding any public office.

But now his senior foreign policy advisor is a man who is clearly deluded about the situation on the ground in Iraq, is clearly deluded about the situation in Iraq pre-war, and wants to start bombing more countries for no particular reason. This clearly eliminates Giuliani as a viable voting option for anyone who cares about liberty, justice, the rule of law, or the international interests of the United States. Which should include everyone.

At this point, Romney seems like the best of a lot of bad options on the GOP side.

Update: Apparently, a lot of Catholics agree that Giuliani must be opposed. (ht: Andrew Sullivan)

Restoring Habeas Corpus

I can't believe this is even necessary in the United States, but it deserves all of our support:

Senators Leahy and Specter have introduced the Habeas Corpus Restoration Act (S. 185). The legislation restores habeas rights to foreign nationals who are detained as enemy combatants or who are awaiting determination of their combatant status. It's a critical piece of legislation to undo the most egregious wrong of the Military Commissions Act. The bill is going to be marked up in the Judiciary Committee tomorrow.

Senator Leahy is asking for our help in garnering support for the legislation:

Many of you may recall the hasty passage of the Military Commissions Act in the weeks leading up to last year's election, a bill that set new rules for trying detainees, in particular those currently being held at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

The passage of this bill was a profound mistake, and its elimination of habeas corpus review was its worst error. Righting this wrong is one of my top priorities, and on the first day of this Congress I joined with Senator Arlen Specter to introduce the Habeas Corpus Restoration Act (S. 185). This bipartisan bill already has 17 cosponsors, but it faces a crucial vote in the Judiciary Committee this Thursday so we need your help.

Please e-mail your home-state Senators today and urge them to protect our fundamental liberties by supporting the Habeas Corpus Restoration Act!

This has become necessary.

UPDATE: Andrew Sullivan reminds us that Edmund Burke is on our side:

My opposition to suspending habeas corpus, to the military commissions farce, and to torture has had many label me a liberal. Well, if Burke was a liberal, then count me in:

The Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol is a simple document – the transmission to two law-enforcement officers of his constituency of an act that the government of Lord North has put to Parliament. The act suspended the great writ of habeas corpus - not for the good burghers of Bristol, of course, but only for a group of murderous insurrectionists who then stood in open and bloody revolt against their lawful sovereign. And the act went further, namely, it provided that these miserable wretches, whose insolence and defiance now extended to the seas, could be labeled enemy combatants pirates at the King’s discretion, and thus robbed of the right to be tried in courts. They would be dealt with in a summary fashion by the King’s military. And the act also provided that these miscreants could be transported across the ocean to England and held there to await their summary disposition – a step which justified the suspension of habeas corpus, since otherwise an English court might demand an accounting for their brutal treatment and incarceration. And there was no doubt as to the brutality of that treatment – these wicked enemies were left rotting in ship hulks and were succumbing to pestilence and malnutrition by the hundreds already.

Burke was not a man to be taken in by such demonization, least of all by the likes of Lord North, and he registered his sharpest opposition to what was being done.

Thank God He's a Mormon

If Mitt Romney didn't belong to one of the wackier religions in the world, he might have a chance of being elected. This would be a bad thing, for reasons completely separate from his religious beliefs. Andrew Sullivan explains why:

Here's a fascinating interview with Sean Hannity, a man who would love the Republican candidate to campaign on torturing detainees. Of course, Fox News skews the debate by focusing entirely on the one in a million "ticking time-bomb" scenario. What else would you expect from Brit Hume? But Romney reveals in this clip that he does not believe the president is bound by the law in this question. He says that he will not provide a definition of "what is torture and what is not torture," because a president should be able to keep terror supects guessing. So he supports "enhanced interrogation techniques" and not torture, but refuses to say what the difference is. And he says the president gets to pick. And U.S. citizens are subject to this regime. The logic of Romney's position, then, is that the president can designate any human being or citizen an "enemy combatant," detain them indefinitely without charges or recourse to the courts, and torture them using any method he wishes as long as he says it's not torture and he is under no obligation to explain what torture is. This is tyranny. Period.

It is tyranny. But Sullivan needed to go one step further, and note that this is currently the official policy of the United States: torture is what Pres. Bush says it is. The tyranny already exists, and Romney is merely affirming it. as did Rudy, although he at least had the stones to come right out and say it:

"Last night's debate was about the definition of torture, and whether you — how you define torture, and I haven't changed my position one bit."

"I said, I don't think we should embrace torture, even in that situation."

"But I do think we should go right up to the limit in a situation like that. Which means enhanced techniques, aggressive techniques."

"It was quite clear in what I said, and I think honestly what Governor Romney said, that neither one of us was talking about torture. But we were talking about going further than Senator McCain was talking about."

"The technique that was being described last night [water-boarding] would not fit into the category of torture."

(bold by me)

the problem, of course, is that water-boarding is torture, no matter what Rudy's personal opinion happens to be. it is considered torture -- and therefore illegal -- by both domestic and international law. the Khmer Rouge believed it to be torture. the U.S. has tried and convicted people in past for water-boarding. the State Dept. says that it is illegal. The U.S. Army says it's illegal So it shouldn't matter what Rudy, or Romney, or Bush happens to think. Water-boarding should never be a practice of the United States, because it is against the law.

But the law is secondary to these guys. Imagining themselves as Pres. Palmer in an episode of 24 seems like a greater concern. Sullivan is right: this is tyranny.