FBI Coerced Confession Deemed "Classified" 456
Steve Bergstein is one of several who have blogged about a recent court ruling that reads like most any bestselling crime novel. Apparently, when the court originally posted their decision (complete with backstory) it detailed how a coerced confession was obtained by the FBI from Abdallah Higazy in relation to the 9/11 attacks. The details, however, were later removed and deemed "classified". "As I read the opinion I realized it was a 44 page epic, too long for me to print out. I blogged about the opinion while I read it online and then posted the blog as I ate lunch. Then something strange happened: a few minutes after I posted the blog, the opinion vanished from the Court of Appeals website! [...] The next day, the Court of Appeals reissued the Higazy opinion. With a redaction. The court simply omitted from the revised decision facts about how the FBI agent extracted the false confession from Higazy. For some reason, this information is classified."
Ha! (Score:5, Insightful)
Can't Have It Two Ways (Score:5, Insightful)
You know, this story is appalling, for several reasons: 1. Some information gets classified, that probably shouldn't be, and the fact that 2. The horse is out of the barn and shows that data, once posted, is impossible to recall, and then they further heighten interest in it by classifying it and raising a stink about it. Their actions have almost ensured world-wide dissemination.
What is worse is that their reaction to this will mostly likely make reasonable public access to information, rulings, testimony, almost impossible to get to.
On a side note, and dealing with my subject line: Guys, you can't have it both ways. Reading /. and listening to Air America, George Bush is either an evil genius able to mastermind these great conspiracies, or, he's dumb as a rock. How about not inserting him into the situation at all. It would serve not to marginalize the discussion and keep blame where it needs to be, the beureaucrats that make these decisions.
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Cheney, on the other hand, is widely well regarded as an evil mastermind. An absolute genius of our generation. Unfortunately, he seems to be bent on destroying american democracy.
Re:Can't Have It Two Ways (Score:5, Interesting)
A completely undeserved reputation. His big plan in '91, for example, was to parachute the 82nd Airborne behind Iraqi lines, capture an Iraqi city and hold for ransom. Schwartzkopf, sane human that he was, didn't think much of it and said so, but Cheney kept insisting on it for weeks.
Bush may be garden variety dumb, but Cheney is truly demented.
I'd disagree (Score:3, Interesting)
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Speaking of "widely disseminated" does anyone have a torrent? I would very much like to read this.
Re:Can't Have It Two Ways (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Can't Have It Two Ways (Score:5, Informative)
Well that was fascinating. Extracted the text from both PDFs and ran diff on the resulting text files. The big thing that was removed seemed to be the following passage. Seems pretty unpleasant.
There are other changes in there, though much smaller. I haven't gone through it exhaustively. The above seemed to be the big thing. Threats against the suspects family...
The only other thing that leapt out at me from a brief skim was the comment that they didn't believe a polygraph would be useful because "if he was a member of Al Quaeda, he could pass it." I find that comment fascinating, too.
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"[i]t never happened to anyone who told the truth."
That's very odd. A polygraph cuff is just helping to take your blood pressure, and it doesn't hurt. If you set it to the point of pain it wouldn't do any good.
It's not like the thing responds to perceived lies with more pressure, or that the reactions it's measuring are painful. That would completely throw off what little good the polygraph is actually able to do.
So I have no idea why the guy would say that, unless he's not operating the polygraph properly and has no conception of how it's supposed to b
(un)secret US torture prisons (Score:5, Interesting)
Templeton later admitted that he knew how the Egyptian security forces operated: "that they had a security service, that their laws are different than ours, that they are probably allowed to do things in that country where they don't advise people of their rights, they don't - yeah, probably about torture, sure."
Don't let this pawn distract you. The US perceives Egypt as rank amateurs in their torture methodology. America's secret prison rendition system sends lower-ranking captives to Egypt for torturing, while using the CIA-operated secret prisons for higher-level suspects.
From the Washington Post [washingtonpost.com]:
Ten years ago, we used to talk about the existence of Black Helicopters [wikipedia.org] and people would laugh at these conspiracy theories. Now people wonder why we're making such a big deal about them.
Seth
Re:Can't Have It Two Ways (Score:5, Insightful)
Ah, you've fallen into his trap.
You see while GW is pretty much incapable of mustering the intelligence of the average 9th grader he does excel at one aspect of business and politics. He delegates extremely well. Not only that, but when the person he delegates something to messes up, he takes the blame and protects his people, thus insulating his delegation from public scrutiny.
In every situation, he makes no decisions. He brings in an expert to do that. You want evil genius? Hired. But if said evil genius is not there speaking into his ear, when you talk to GW you get the ninth grader.
I hope that explains it for you, because this is waaaay off topic.
Re:Can't Have It Two Ways (Score:5, Insightful)
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Isn't the appeal court decision to send the case (previous dismissed on summary judgment) back to court for trial?
Not the case of Higazy being accused of criminal activity... that was dismissed long ago. THIS case is him suing the FBI agent and others for violating his constitutional rights. Maybe you missed that?
The only portion redacted is Higazy's claim of how the polygraph questioning went, accus
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If my "stuff that makes us look bad" you mean "stuff that shows we *are* bad".
Re:Ha! (Score:4, Insightful)
Having read the unredacted opinion, I don't see anything that's even remotely classified information. All I see is an FBI agent making veiled threats against his family and making some bold claims about egyptian security forces which are probably taken out of thin air. And how they force him into one "confession", then making him invent more and more fantastic stories before finally using his changing statements against him. There's a long list of nations covering up their interrogation methods, I just didn't know the US aspired to be one of them.
Re:Ha! (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, one word from FBI to the Egyptian police, and the family will be taken in for questioning. And by questioning I mean full-body-contact questioning.
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Re:Ha! (Score:4, Interesting)
Do you REALLY think this just started with Bush? Or just this century?
All that's happened recently is it's now harder to hide things, and easier to leak anonymously. Politician hiding information they don't like is far, far older.
Bush didn't teach them shit about corruption - see J. Edgar Hoover.
-- Ravensfire
Re:Ha! (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.archives.gov/isoo/policy-documents/eo-12958-amendment.html#1.7 [archives.gov]
My guess is that some Original Classification Authority (OCA) signed off on a Security Classification Guide that states interrogation techniques used by the FBI are classified.
Human Rights Court (Score:3, Insightful)
"Every person has the right to the protection of the law against abusive attacks upon his honor, his reputation, and his private and family life."
And the American Convention on Human Rights: http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/oasinstr/zoas3con.htm [umn.edu]
"Every person has the right to be compensated in accordance with the law in the event he has been sentenced
Transcript of removed text (Score:3, Informative)
Higazy alleges that during the polygraph, Templeton told him that he should cooperate,
and explained that if Higazy did not cooperate, the FBI would make his brother "live in scrutiny"
and would "make sure that Egyptian security gives [his] family hell." Templeton later admitted
that he knew how the Egyptian security forces operated: "that they had a security ser
Torture doesn't work. (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's what 24 doesn't tell you: You don't know who you have. If you did, you wouldn't need to interrogate them, because you'd already pretty much know everything about them. Or at the very least, you'd know the broad strokes and just want to fill in the details. However, as demonstrated during the interrogation of Khalid Sheik Mohammed, even when you know who you have and want to get some more details about past operations, torture is misguided. According to congressional hearings on the matter, it is thought that most of his confessions were nothing but attempts to get through the interrogation and protect his family. This is the second thing that 24 doesn't tell you: torture elicits probably results in more disinformation than regular interrogation techniques. Why? Because the interrogators are being told what they want to hear. Combined with the drive to show success, confirmation bias and a whole host of other human failings, this can send investigators on a far more dangerous goose chase than a detainee just telling random stories.
What really pisses me off is that the US military knew all this and this codified in their interrogation handbook: torture doesn't work, so there's no point in attempting it. But some criminally inept politicians - all without a day of military or covert experience - decided that they knew better and created new rules from scratch. The end result? Nothing but our loss of the moral high ground. Oh, and a whole bunch of information that is most likely wrong.
Congrats, US leaders: you managed to completely hose one of our main advantages in the "war" on terror. Sadly, the next crop (Hillary or Guliani, most likely) will be just as bad. Why? Because the majority of the voters buy into the 24 approach to terror. Which means we get the leaders we deserve.
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No, they'll be just as bad because of the systematic structure of the US electorial system. It's a system where if you don't vote for the most popular candidate, you vote is worthless, so you need to guess which o
24, Gunsmoke, and torture (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, you can have perfect moral clarity and know there is a ticking time bomb when you're part of a TV audience that saw the bad guy setting the bomb, but in reality you don't get to see the bomb--people are being tortured to see if there is a bomb, to see if this guy knows a guy who knows if there's a bomb, and so on...reality lacks the perfect god-like clarity that the neocons think they have.
When you're dealing with someone who thinks that they have this moral clarity that only exists in fictional scenarios, you're dealing with someone very stupid, very arrogant, with a power fetish, or any combination of the three. Opposition to torture is grounded not just in the idea that torture is wrong, but in the recognition that we're fallible, our knowledge is limited, and basically that people can't be trusted with that level of power. This grounding humility is what is lacking in the neocons. They may be humble in other ways, praying to God and so forth, but they believe so strongly in their own vision that they feel that normal morality doesn't apply.
This isn't strictly confined to the neocons--some leftists have tortured for the Marxist/Stalinist/whatever cause, no doubt, but they are long gone. The neocons may not have a monopoly on hubris, but they're the problem we're dealing with today.
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Cheers.
Re:Ha! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Ha! (Score:5, Interesting)
A lot of people like to make this comparison because Nixon often came off as a unilateral dick, he was in many ways. However, he at least was a functional president. Hell, he was more than a functional president; he even had several net positives like repairing relations with China. If I had the chance to go back and magically make it so we had Nixon as president for the last 7 years, I think I would literally jump for joy.
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...right?
Re:Even-handed coverage... (Score:4, Insightful)
I think what you meant to ask was, "When is the U.S. government going to start classifying and redacting stories of what happens to American soldiers caught alive by Islamists?"
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This blog highlights the effects that our executive branch is having on our Right to confront our own government's behavior.
It is important because it shows a concerted effort to keep secret the systematic and despicable actions of people in our agencies, who act on our behalf, using ineffectual techniques that have yielded injustice. No good comes from protecting incompetence.
If you want to obfuscate or redirect the conversation... too bad!
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Ok, so far so good.
Then comes 9/11 and they find this thing and someone wants to question him.
So far so good.
They threaten his family with bad stuff, nudge nudge, wink wink, unless he confesses.
It's later broken up as the real pilot tells about the transponder.
So far so good.
Guy goes to sue, and has the ri
Re:Even-handed coverage... (Score:5, Insightful)
The fact that American soldiers can be tortured or killed is not sufficient cause to threaten to torture and kill the families of terrorism *suspects*.
And of course in this case, the FBI had to admit that this guy was innocent all along.
Or perhaps you think that the people who do torture or kill our soldiers will see how we are mistreating our own prisoners and be moved to change their behavior?
Re:Even-handed coverage... (Score:5, Insightful)
That is entirely the point. If you talk to any member of the JAG corps about torture they will tell you that the reason the US did not permit its troops to torture others is that it is the only way that the US could protect its own troops.
Of course there are always enemies that do not respect the rules of war, that is why the Nurenberg trials were held.
Te Abu Graihb photographs and more importantly the conspicuous decision not to hold anyone in the chain of command accountable for them has demonstrated that the US does torture. And as a result US servicemen who are captured by Jihadis can expect to be treated as brutally as the Abu Graihb photographs.
More importantly the US has conceeded the moral case in the war on terror. It is the same mistake made by the British at the start of the IRA terrorist campaign. Internment without trial did nothing to stop the violence and the future leadership of the IRA emerged from the internees. Gerry Adams wrote his famous series of monographs under the name 'Brownie' which developed the Ballot-Bomb strategy.
As a result many US politicians who should have known better supported the IRA even as they were murdering civilians in the UK. People like Rudy Giuliani were attending IRA fundraisers right up to 9/11. Giuliani even gave Gerry Adams a 'humanitarian award' on behalf of NYC and expressed the hope that he would force Clinton to speak to Adams even without the renunciation of violence that Clinton demanded. A few months later Adams and Co blew up a shopping mall.
In the days after 9/11 everything changed. It was no longer hip to support the IRA. Rudy attended a NORAID fundraiser immediately after 9/11 but only after the IRA agreed the money would go to the 9/11 victims. After that US funding for NORAID disappeared entirely and the IRA finally accepted the demands that they had long resisted to disarm.
The reason the IRA had to pack it in was precisely because they had finaly lost the moral case that had been carelessly handed to them in the opening years of the troubles.
The model that HMG followed in defeating the IRA was to copy the West German authorities strategy for dealling with the Baader-Meinhof gang. The Germans refused to treat the RAF as political prisoners, they were always treated as common criminals.
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And as a result US servicemen who are captured by Jihadis can expect to be treated as brutally as the Abu Graihb photographs.
No.
Long before those photographs were published many US soldiers expected to be tortured if they were captured. During some of the higher level Marine SERE training that was pretty well drilled into our heads. And if it wasn't, those of us on the ground in Somalia, watching video of our captured brothers, figured it out.
So no, I don't think the photos were any kind of deciding factor for anyone.
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I agree with you entirely.
During some of the higher level Marine SERE training that was pretty well drilled into our heads.
Its scary part of military training is to provide you with the information and preparation you need. And the another part is to provide dehumanize your enemies, so you don't hesitate to pull the trigger when its time, so that you never question whether or not your fighting for the
Re:Even-handed coverage... (Score:5, Informative)
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Medina was never prosecuted. Neither were the members of the chain of command that gave Medina the order to give to Calley.
Re:Even-handed coverage... (Score:4, Insightful)
Not for anyone actually involved, no—but they certainly lost us a lot of sympathy (not to mention respect) from the rest of the world where our own people are concerned.
Dan Aris
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I am aware of that, the Abu Graihb photographs look pretty much like the SAS course Resistance to Interrogation (R2I).
The point I was making however is that before the photographs that was pretty much the worst that captured servicemen could expect. Now it is the best.
Its even worse than that as the
Re:Even-handed coverage... (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course there are always enemies that do not respect the rules of war, that is why the Nurenberg trials were held.
Re:Even-handed coverage... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Even-handed coverage... (Score:4, Insightful)
In that culture it is worse.
Killing a person might begin a blood feud with their relatives. But pissing on the Koran is starting a feud with a whole religion.
Debating normative ethics with people who fly airplanes into buildings is pointless. But understanding the basis on which they form ethical judgements is essential if you are going to defeat them.
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Russia. Cuba. Iran.
Do you recall those British sailors captured and released by Iran about a year ago? They did show their faces on TV (which is illegal) but I don't recall anybody being tortured there either.
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Torture is a hopeless means of extracting intelligence, and anything gained must be checked and verified independa
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Don't they know that women are being kidnapped and murdered in other countries too? I mean jeez! why don't they write about that instead?
Re:Even-handed coverage... (Score:5, Insightful)
Even if it isn't as bad as what the Islamics do, I don't think that the US government holding that behavior up as something to do it'self is a good thing. We are supposed to be FIGHTING this behavior, not emulating it.
Re:Even-handed coverage... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Even-handed coverage... (Score:4, Insightful)
so, what were they? (Score:2)
Re:so, what were they? (Score:5, Informative)
Higazy alleges that during the polygraph, Templeton told him that he should cooperate, and explained that if Higazy did not cooperate, the FBI would make his brother "live in scrutiny" and would "make sure that Egyptian security gives [his] family hell." Templeton later admitted that he knew how the Egyptian security forces operated: "that they had a security service, that their laws are different than ours, that they are probably allowed to do things in that country where they don't advise people of their rights, they don't - yeah, probably about torture, sure."
Higazy later said, "I knew that I couldn't prove my innocence, and I knew that my family was in danger." He explained that "[t]he only thing that went through my head was oh, my God, I am screwed and my family's in danger. If I say this device is mine, I'm screwed and my family is going to be safe. If I say this device is not mine, I'm screwed and my family's in danger. And Agent Templeton made it quite clear that cooperate had to mean saying something else other than this device is not mine."
Higazy explained why he feared for his family:
The Egyptian government has very little tolerance for anybody who is --they're suspicious of being a terrorist. To give you an idea, Saddam's security force--as they later on were called his henchmen--a lot of them learned their methods and techniques in Egypt; torture, rape, some stuff would be even too sick to . . . . My father is 67. My mother is 61. I have a brother who developed arthritis at 19. He still has it today. When the word 'torture' comes at least for my brother, I mean, all they have to do is really just press on one of these knuckles. I couldn't imagine them doing anything to my sister.
And Higazy added:
[L]et's just say a lot of people in Egypt would stay away from a family that they know or they believe or even rumored to have anything to do with terrorists and by the same token, some people who actually could be --might try to get to them and somebody might actually make a connection. I wasn't going to risk that. I wasn't going to risk that, so I thought to myself what could I say that he would believe. What could I say that's convincing? And I said okay.
Secure Your Valuables (Score:5, Funny)
Here are the two opinions. (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Here are the two opinions. (Score:5, Funny)
That's right, folks: you're being protected from the terrorists by people whose understanding of the modern world has yet to surpass that of 1990s sitcom writers.
Re:Here are the two opinions. (Score:5, Insightful)
Intentionally allowing the bad guys to go free. (Score:5, Insightful)
This kind of "law enforcement" actually makes us LESS safe than simply doing nothing at all. Is the FBI *really* staffed by living, thinking humans? How could they possibly do this kind of thing and not be incredibly ashamed of themselves!?
Plot to Fahrenheit 451 (Score:2)
If its hot, get it local... (Score:5, Insightful)
If it is a web page, and you have the full Acrobat, then use the web capture facility to get a copy of it and store it away.
The web is wonderful. But it has more opportunities to be "corrected" than the Soviet Union did during the Stalin's purges of the 30s and 40s.
Yours,
Jordan
Scary and stupid (Score:4, Insightful)
How can you rely on a confession extracted by force anyway? At least I know I'd say/admit to anything to just stop having my fingernails pulled out with pliers or whatever.
Re:Scary and stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
Ideally, we are. In reality, thinking that we're the good guys is a lot easier and more profitable than living up to the expectation.
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Confession - the Mother of Evidence (Score:5, Insightful)
This is why a confession should never be trusted on its own — without other evidence. Nor is it really trusted on its own by the courts in free countries, such as ours — as evidenced by this very case.
They may have coerced an admission from him, that it was his device, but without details on where he got it, and how he used it, that admission is quite worthless even if he were scared for his family's life enough to not backpaddle from the addmission in court... I'm quite proud, that he was not sufficiently scared, though...
And, finally, we only know the details of the coercion from one side. The FBI agent, according to the article, merely "did not contest" the fact of coercion. That's not an admission of guilt by any measure...
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I would have a wager that if you give me duct tape, a pair of pliers, a "victim", and an official government sanction that says I can do anything I'd like and won't get into any trouble as long as he lives long enough for a secret trial that I can make him confess to any crime you need him to confess too eve
Re:Confession - the Mother of Evidence (Score:4, Interesting)
- mandatory recording of confessions made while in custody of law enforcement
- corroboration of jailhouse informant testimony
- standards for eyewitness identification procedures
The Commission is made up of law enforcement, prosecutors and defense attorneys. Their recommendations were embodied in three California Senate bills (SB511, SB609, SB756) and were passed by the Senate.
Governor Schwarzenneger vetoed all three bills. About the bill requiring the recording of confessions he said: "This bill would place unnecessary restrictions on police investigators."
Re:Confession - the Mother of Evidence (Score:4, Insightful)
And maybe it would have. But you know what? If we, as a society, truly believe that it is better for a guilty man to go free than to imprison an innocent one, maybe that's the price we have to pay.
In Defense of Bush (sorta) (Score:5, Insightful)
Had there been no secretive FBI, no secretive CIA, no emphasis on the Federal power from the get go, none of this could have happened. Everyone looks at Bush / Cheney as if he were the mastermind of some vast conspiracy, when the practical matter is that we have had almost 75 years of a massive federal government on a wartime footing, just waiting for the next enemy to arrive. These agents don't need orders to torture people or to kill perceived enemies. They have been waiting to do this their whole lives. They need orders NOT TO, and they really need to be not employed at all.
Instead, what the left wing is arguing for is a banana republic type of government - rule by personality, when instead, the best lesson to learn is that the government is the problem, and the solution to ensure our freedom is to deconstruct the government from the get go. If we could only put the "good guy" in charge of the police state, everything will be ok. Except that, we will still have a police state.
Look at the facts. What Democrats opposed passage of the full 9/11 commission recommendations - essentially turn the USA into a police state. What Democrat has offered to repeal USA PATRIOT? What Democrat has volunteered to narrow the scope of CIA and FBI? There will be more Federal terror, not less, before this unfortunate behavior winds its course. We have to learn to discipline ourselves as voters - that, every time we panic and ask our government to protect us - we are really just empowering a bunch of thugs to enslave us.
Re:In Defense of Bush (sorta) (Score:5, Insightful)
The machine is not broken, the Constitution remains to this day a framework that is viable, and valid. It is the men in government that torture its meanings, and pervert the rule of law. So, YES, Bush does need bashing, impeached, and a couple of other things. It is directly under his rule that a 'war' was invented, the war on terror, so that he could press the powers of wartime to further oppress the American public. I do not post AC, and I urge anyone that is disturbed by the way things have been going in American politics and government lately to stand and be counted. There is but one candidate for 2008 that dares utter the word Constitution, never mind abide by it.
You sir, you shall not defend Bush, for doing so is to say it's okay what he has done, and what has been done to My rights in his name. I say it is NOT right. I protest, both what he has done and what you are NOW doing to my rights by being passive and accepting and nearly forgiving him. The captain sinks with the ship, and if you think Bush deserves to slip away in a life raft, you are very mistaken.
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Yes, it is broke. The Constitution is great, but nobody listens to it. It's supposed to be a grant of powers to the government, not an enumeration of rights of the people, so, from the get go, we've lost all of our natural rights without even firing a shot. A number of federal agencies and rules are, essentially, unconsti
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Name any one of the ten amendments that is not regularly broken.
Or perhaps you mean that there are checks and balances?
I might note that most of Bush's appointments, which are supposed to be confirmed by the Senate, are unconfirmed. That's a sign of a dictatorship.
I might also note that the CIA appeared to capture the US presidency in the Reagan/Carter election, after a disenchantment with Carter for shaking up the CIA. It w
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Now where is all this outrage? Where did all those concerned with reigning in federal government go? The answer is apparently, that they really don't mind a federal government that strong-arms its population - they merely mind if it isn't being used to f
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If the left ever gained absolute power in this country, we'd all be in concentration camps, guarded by soldiers wearing armbands with peace insignias, with Joan Baez droning 24x7 from the public address.
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Oh, here we go. Bill Clinton pardoned Marc Rich, and a few terrorists already convicted for plotting to blow up police.
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Of course the tools were there, as all tools always are (a hammer does not make a murder-machine). While there are plenty of people in law enforcement who just love to kick ass but are restricted by laws, are you disputing that Cheney (and Bush by extension) has removed the leash?
Your entire "banana republic" paragraph is a straw-man, so we can ignore that, except for one part:
instead, the best lesson to learn is that the government is the problem,
If thi
The reason is obvious... (Score:4, Interesting)
There's lots of historic evidence now that official secrecy in the US (and all other governments) rarely has anything to do with "national security". The primary reason for secrecy has always been to prevent a government's own citizens from knowing about the inner workings of their own government.
Suppression of evidence that would exonerate a defendant in a criminal court case is the most egregious sort of misuse of official secrecy, true, and it's routinely used for things much less important than this. Occasionally, it is actually used to prevent a nation's external enemies to learn something embarrassing. But mostly it's just to keep internal enemies (aka "citizens") from learning things that the government doesn't want you or me (or a judge) to know.
From the redacted opinion (Score:2, Informative)
From the redacted opinion:
Of Course... (Score:2)
Precisly why government secrecy is bad. (Score:4, Insightful)
There is *no* reason for secrecy within our government. There are *no* reasons for classified material at all. Not any more.
We live in a unipolar world. We are the "strong". There isn't any more reason for us to play cloak and dagger, all we have to do is sit back, have proper, up-front security measures, utilize common sense public surveillance (i.e. patrol officers in problem areas, surveillance inside airports, monitoring of known "bad guy" websites), and we'll be safe.
I cannot, for the life of me, imagine why any of the secrecy provisions pushed forth by the Bush administration contribute to our security.
For that matter, I don't believe that any of the other CIA/FBI "black ops" contribute either. Rendition might make some warhawks in the executive branch feel good, but it is nonsensical that it helps to protect our nation. Better XRAY machines, and locks on cockpit doors protect our nations. Paying our troops more money protects our nation, as would federal marshalls on planes, and a whole bunch of other measures.
But taking our suspected enemies to Libya and beating the crap out of them? What does that accomplish?
Google News question (Score:5, Interesting)
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"Results 1 - 10 of about 103 for Higazy"
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CHris Mattern
Redacted part (Score:5, Informative)
Higazy alleges that during the polygraph, Templeton told him that he should cooperate, and explained that if Higazy did not cooperate, the FBI would make his brother "live in scrutiny" and would "make sure that Egyptian security gives [his] family hell." Templeton later admitted that he knew how the Egyptian security forces operated: "that they had a security service, that their laws are different than ours, that they are probably allowed to do things in that country where they don't advise people of their rights, they don't - yeah, probably about torture, sure."
Higazy later said, "I knew that I couldn't prove my innocence, and I knew that my family was in danger." He explained that "[t]he only thing that went through my head was oh, my God, I am screwed and my family's in danger. If I say this device is mine, I'm screwed and my family is going to be safe. If I say this device is not mine, I'm screwed and my family's in danger. And Agent Templeton made it quite clear that cooperate had to mean saying something else other than this device is not mine."
Higazy explained why he feared for his family:
"The Egyptian government has very little tolerance for anybody who is --they're suspicious of being a terrorist. To give you an idea, Saddam's security force--as they later on were called his henchmen--a lot of them learned their methods and techniques in Egypt; torture, rape, some stuff would be even too sick to . . . . My father is 67. My mother is 61. I have a brother who developed arthritis at 19. He still has it today. When the word 'torture' comes at least for my brother, I mean, all they have to do is really just press on one of these knuckles. I couldn't imagine them doing anything to my sister."
And Higazy added:
"[L]et's just say a lot of people in Egypt would stay away from a family that they know or they believe or even rumored to have anything to do with terrorists and by the same token, some people who actually could be --might try to get to them and somebody might actually make a connection. I wasn't going to risk that. I wasn't going to risk that, so I thought to myself what could I say that he would believe. What could I say that's convincing? And I said okay."
For those who have had no counter-terrorism exp (Score:5, Informative)
The suggestion by a poster that they "give him warm milk and cookies" is actually one of many proven methods of interrogation.
Interrogation - the act of questioning. One has a number of people interact with the subject, and one or more of those people takes "the side" of the person being interrogated, bonding with them on many levels.
This works very very often.
It is far more effective, gives highly reliable results, and if cross-referenced, will yield even more results.
In short: Torture does not work. Interrogation - not involving torture - does work.
We'd be far better off spending 1/1000th as much as we waste on military ops against terrorists and hiring trained police interrogators (not torturers) and detectives who understand the social and cultural background of the terrorists.
Mind you, a few nukes in Saudi Arabia would solve the whole problem, since Iraq has nothing to do with 9-11. FYI, Pakistan is not our ally, no matter what they tell you.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Especially if you've been standing for 14 hours with metal clips attached to your outstreched arms while your head is covered by a hood.
Re:For those who have had no counter-terrorism exp (Score:4, Interesting)
If we pay attention to the legitimate grievances of the local population, and behave ourselves, the local population, who fear and despise the Jihadist movements as a rule, will turn the Jihadists in (those that remain Jihadist in outlook).
Even a bare minimum regard for the economic well-being of the general population nips these movements in the bud, which is why they are absent in Turkey (which has religious conservatives, but they are not at all the same) and Libya (hardly a paradigm example in other respects) but so prevalent in Algeria and Egypt.
In fact, in the wake of 9/11, this is what began to happen. The Jihadist movements were on the run and would have been destroyed.
Except that we invaded Iraq, religitimizing these movements in the eyes of the general population to a significant extent, and saving them from destruction at the hands of their own populations, who are also their primary victims. So while Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, the invasion of Iraq contributed immensely the possibility that we'll see further attacks.
As for nuking Saudi Arabia - we'd see a similar effect. The rest of the world would see attacks against the US as legitimate, and they'd unite against us. US-friendly regimes in Turkey, the Balkans and Indonesia would become unviable. It would be an absolute disaster.
There are two basic things that we could do to reduce the threat of terror, and they would work:
1) Police work, as you say.
and
2) Basic honor and decency.
Not classified, redacted. (Score:5, Informative)
What the story is about is that the court issued an opinion, then withdrew it, and issues a redacted opinion. Probably what happened is that the the court had inadvertently included info that was under seal by the district court.
One possible explanation for the redaction is to protect the guy's family in Egypt.
Another, maybe more likely, explanation was to avoid embarrassment to the FBI.
The story was broken by blogger Howard Bashman of How Appealing, who refused to take down the unredacted version after a call from the court asking him to take it down.
http://patterico.com/2007/10/21/was-a-passage-omitted-from-a-recent-second-circuit-opinion-for-security-reasons-or-to-cover-up-material-embarrassing-to-the-fbi/ [patterico.com]
http://howappealing.law.com/102007.html#029139 [law.com]
Above post is insightful and informative.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:They Should Have (Score:5, Informative)
Higazy wasn't a bad guy--he was completely innocent. He had nothing to do with 9/11 or terrorism. The coerced confession wasn't just legally problematic, it actually sent a completely innocent man to jail. If he hadn't been lucky enough for the pilot who owned the radio to show up and say "hey, that's mine", he'd be in jail today.
The baby Jesus weeps for humanity when slobberers like you open your mouth.