You know, I might believe that one or two of those Dems are in trouble and had to do this to hang onto a seat. I don't follow the senate races in South Dakota.
But that is definitely *not* true of Lieberman. That vote was just an expression of his pure, craven, authoritarian-loving, fascist-trending, lick-spittle Bush-worshipping.
He's going to rot in hell. Maybe one circle out from Cheney, but still within screaming distance.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who helped draft the legislation during negotiations with the White House, said the measure would set up a system for treating detainees that the nation could be proud of. He said the goal ''is to render justice to the terrorists, even though they will not render justice to us.''
I cannot even express the contempt I feel for that lying bastard right now, because I'm afraid I'll say something truly distasteful. Also:
"The habeas corpus language in this bill is as legally abusive of rights guaranteed in the Constitution as the actions at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and secret prisons that were physically abusive of detainees,'' said Sen. Carl Levin, the top Democrat on the Armed Services panel.
That's the best line he could come up with? Really? That's pretty fucking lame.
So, minor props for my Republican Senator, I suppose.
Is this (a) an expression of Chafee's personal conviction and independence, or (b) a typical craven example of Chafee voting against his party only when it doesn't matter?
FUCKIN A!!!! Menendez and Lautenberg both told me they were against! Loutenberg's inarticulate intern told me it was a top issue in the senator's view!
So I confess I haven't really read the text of the bill, just secondhand reports: can anyone torture Muslims now, or just members of our intelligence services and armed forces? Like, the next time ogged makes a sexist comment, is it now legal for us to waterboard him?
Menendez is probably thinking he's down in the polls and this will help (I sure hope he's wrong). No idea on Lautenberg or Stabenow; the rest are pretty predictable, unfortunately.
next up: the surveillance bill! because what's the use in the ability to throw your political enemies in jail indefinitely without the secret means of discovering them?!
otherwise known as the oh shit, wish I hadn't blogged that right-left combo!
Also: if the vote was this lopsided, a fillibuster probably wouldn't have worked. Presumably there are some Democrats who voted it down but who wouldn't have gone so far as to support a fillibuster.
We must liquidate the Democrats and form a new opposition party.
It was a joke, of course, but I think a Bush assasination is the worst possible thing that could ever happen. Ogged gets it right. This is the shit they pass when we're more or less safe.
I was making a reference to the Family Guy episode where a teenage Stewie explains that he got wine coolers by "doing some stuff for a guy in the parking lot," then asks "Does anyone have any Scope?"
I think a Bush assasination is the worst possible thing that could ever happen.
I think the best thing that could happen is for Bush to choke to death on a muffin right after Cheney gets mauled to death by a rogue hippopotamus right after Nancy Pelosi gets sworn in as Speaker of the House.
I went to South Dakota with the DCCC to work for Herseth. More even than her vote on the bankruptcy bill, her vote for this detainee bill makes me regret that.
"We must liquidate the Democrats and form a new opposition party."
Seriously, Adam. I'll bet I'm as pissed off as you are, but under your plan? Bush is declared proconsul for life before your new party gets 100 signatures.
You know in this two party system of ours how only one party seems to feel the need to have a couple of firearms and some ammo on hand? Not good. Just saying.
God, this pisses me off. I'm actually a little scared, now, living in this country.
I called my senators, left my numbers, gave them the what-for and.... hold on a sec. I gotta get the door. If I'm not back in 15 minutes, call my family and tell 'em I'm at th
26: The so-called "worst-case scenario" of a Bush assassination is (a) physically impossible to do in the real world and (b) not really the worst case.
The true worst case would be a failed assassination attempt on Bush -- which any attempt would necessarily be.
30 actually makes a very good point. I've been sort of half-wanting to buy a gun for a really long damn time, and now might be the time to finally act on that impulse. Not that I'm about to go do anything with it. Just.... because.
28: I worked with the DCCC for Ben Chandler in Kentucky a few months before that, and that he voted for this bill is really pissing me off. You reminded me that I need to call his office about that.
8: I've never cast a vote for any Chafee, and don't plan to. That said, even with the election going on, I'd be willing to bet that Linc's vote today represented his own views, as well as his political self-interest. I think he probably would have done it even if the political pressure in Washington were higher on him. A vote in favor would be too much of a break with what the Chafee name means for him to do it, I think.
30 - About the best spin I could put on all of this is that the last several years have been a vast, brilliant strategy designed to bring the left around on the issue of gun control...
41: Think your causality or time arrow is going the wrong way in that analogy, just sayin', unless the terrorists haven't attacked because they presaged that if they didn't attack, we'd pass a really stupid law.
I really just profoundly fail to understand what motivates anyone to vote for this. Yes, some people are in it for the political narrative, but aside from that. (Is it insane for me to even be thinking that there is an "aside from that"?) Is it sheerly the retroactive factor, to protect people who have already done the awful things and might go to jail? Is there seriously anyone who thinks that this legislation makes America safer? What's it all for, anyhow?
The defenses I've heard from average joe blog commenters indicate that they think this only applies to foreign terrorists, and of course we want our boys to be able to do what they have to in order to get information and save our lives.
Why the FUCK do people assume that the government will get anything right, ever? Good fucking fuckity fuck. These are the guys that give you receipts if you fill out the simplest paperwork, because they know you will want to track it when they screw something up.
What the fuck is wrong with people that they're willing to say, oh, sure, they can't make the trains run on time or get my passport processed properly, but I'm sure in the stress of war they'll translate the Urdu they don't speak perfectly when handed over the local shopkeeper who fuckity fuck fuck fuck. Don't we even want a receipt for people so we can find them in case, just like everything else this administration touches, makes a boo-boo and we need to fix it?
I've seen some people calling this an abolition of habeas corpus, but as I understand it, habeas is suspended only with regard to non-citizens. This removes a key danger of abuse, since the potential politically-motivated abuses that are most worrisome involve U.S. citizens, not aliens. And Congress quite explicitly has the Constitutional power to suspend the writ of habeas corpus, though whether this counts as a "suspension" of the writ is open for debate. Like Orin Kerr, I'm not an expert on habeas and thus don't have a lot more to say about it.
You know, I'm sick of these fucking so-called libertarian lawyers who mouth off about every goddamn thing they have no fucking clue about suddenly playing the 'would be irresponsible to speculate' card when it comes to something where if they kept to their libertarian principles they'd have to do more than kiss the GOP's ass creatively.
Oh, and in case anyone was wondering: The Bill of Rights? Says person, not citizen.
57: The Volokh people in particular have really disgraced themselves.
I made several attempts to comment on Orin Kerr's feeble defensive whinge of a post ("but you're not allowed not to like me! I'm ever so smart!"). In the end I just couldn't bring myself to do anything more than scream all-caps obscenities at him, which didn't seem worth it: it would only have made him smugger.
Is it in fact true that citizens can't be detained indefinitely under this bill? I thought the executive's say so was sufficient to classify someone as an enemy combatant. I thought I read something about this today, but now can't find it.
Yeah, I had the VC in mind. Oh we can make predictions, serious high minded ones about AIDS transmission and why we should discourage bis from being gay, but don't ask us to talk about the law. That's speculating.
Kerr is easily the least objectionable of the VC crowd, so I'm willing to give him a bit of a pass. I don't read VC, though, so perhaps he's worse and more disingenous than I remember him being.
That's what I love about Unfogged; the stimulating debates.
Question for the group: Do you think that our government's aggressive, due-process-lacking detention of suspected terrorists and their associates since 9-11 has had any connection at all to the lack of terror attacks since that time? Or is every single person we've detained an innocent victim of mistaken identity and misplaced suspicion?
To be clear, I don't support a bill that does away with Americans' rights to due process, and I expect that to the extent this bill does, it will be found unconstitutional. And yet that doesn't mean the tactics it authorizes are ineffective at stopping terrorist plots. Rather, they most likely are effective, but we should reject them anyway because they undermine our other goals and values. And we should be aware that we are making a trade-off in doing so.
Do you think that our government's aggressive, due-process-lacking detention of suspected terrorists and their associates since 9-11 has had any connection at all to the lack of terror attacks since that time? Or is every single person we've detained an innocent victim of mistaken identity and misplaced suspicion?
False dichotomy, but the answer to your first question is "probably not".
Do you think that our government's aggressive, due-process-lacking detention of suspected terrorists and their associates since 9-11 has had any connection at all to the lack of terror attacks since that time?
And do you really believe this administration is catching bona fide terrorists right and left, but not telling us? They crow every chance they get, like with Padilla. And every time it turns out they're full of shit.
That's what I love about Unfogged, the fact that someone can make an obviously inflammatory nonsequitur and then whimper when people don't take him seriously! Come on. 41 was a lame throwaway comment at best.
So there's a lot going on here, but I'll try to conduct an organized response. I'm not sure what you mean by 'tactics', so I'm going to take it to me the combination of detention, torture, and lack of judicial oversight -- the sorts of things the bill addressed today.
Or is every single person we've detained an innocent victim of mistaken identity and misplaced suspicion?
Innocent of what? Part of the problem with this situation is that most of the detainees haven't been charged with anything and haven't seen a courtroom. It's impossible to say whether they're innocent or not because I have no idea what they're supposed to be charged with. Plotting an attack? Being in Kabul during the invasion? Fighting against the U.S. army during the invasion? Guilty of what?
Granting for the sake of argument that we have defined innocent, I'm sure that not every single person is an innocent victim, but I don't need it to be every single person in order for it to be a gross miscarriage of justice. We're talking about pretty severe torture tactics, and arguing that we should use them as indiscriminately as possible.
And yet that doesn't mean the tactics it authorizes are ineffective at stopping terrorist plots.
Bad argument. It isn't positive evidence that the specific tactics authorized stopped a terrorist attack just because we haven't had one on American soil since 9/11. (We could spin that into an argument for pre 9/11 tactics; we hadn't been attacked since 1993!) It isn't positive evidence either way, though I'd be more inclined to cite the squashing of al-Qaeda in Afghanistan & an increase on border security as probably the biggest reason there hasn't been a coordinated attack on U.S. soil.
Especially given that no-one can tell us why the detainees are there; if you want to make the case that the tactics are what's preventing another 9/11, you're going to have to make the argument, not just assume it that because the tactics existed at the same time, they must be responsible for the lack of attacks. I have about as much evidence for the lack of attacks due to my starting graduate school around the same time.
So not too much can be said about the tactics' effectiveness at all, and we can't judge how many detainees are innocent and how many are plotters. Here's the thing; just playing the odds, most of the detainees are guilty of something pretty mundanely soldierly. Treating a Taliban G.I. as if he were someone who could plot 9/11 is, human rights issues aside, a gigantic waste of resources.
And on top of that, you'd have to make the case that such tactics would be made less effective if we had judicial oversight regarding the status of the detainees.
Why ramp it up? Give me a good reason why giving someone a chance to figure out what he's charged with makes it impossible to fight terror. Because we seem to be assuming here, against the evidence of a criminal justice system that works, mostly, that if we even make the charges public, then... what?
What's so wrong about allowing the courts to serve as a check on police and military power?
And yet that doesn't mean the tactics it authorizes are ineffective at stopping terrorist plots.
And no, it's not going to be effective. Effective counter terrorism is dependant on intel from the natives. That's why Special Forces and others who actually do a lot of counter terrorism work don't fucking torture people. Nobody's going to come forward to work with our guys and give them intel if they think they might be abused. This is insanely counterproductive.
Let's say that x = the number of people the US has detained as suspected terrorists or terrorist supporters.
Now, let's say y is a number between 0 and 1 reflecting the percentage of those people who are actually terrorists or terrorist supporters.
Unless y=0, then our aggressive detention policies have kept at least some terrorists or supporters from continuing their activities.
We may feel that (y * x) is too low to justify detaining (1 - y) * x innocent people, but that's a question of numbers, not principles.
Note also that the above analysis has absolutely no connection to torture or other coercive interrogation techniques, which are another issue entirely. It's focused simply on the value of getting terrorists "off the streets".
GB: You're assuming a binaristic logical structure that isn't applicable here, as well as assuming a fixed supply of "terrorists or terrorist supporters". Plus, your argument that it's a "question of numbers, not principles" could equally be used to justify the Holocaust: after all, presumably one of the Jews murdered was probably the equivalent of a "terrorist or terrorist supporter" to Nazi Germany, so really we're just talking "numbers, not principles".
69: Detention on that basis will take you pretty much all the way to the door of Judge Death.
For consistency, the same approach surely has to apply to all other crimes: all violent crimes, at least. But if everyone down to the last innocent voting citizen isn't to end up in jail, or subject to sanctions of some sort, one refinement you'd have to add would be to poll detainees for their preference. Maybe things would normalise somewhere around the 50% in, 50% out mark: who knows.
Justice isn't implemented through game theory. It centers on attempts to determine guilt after the fact. If there's a prophylactic effect from keeping convicts in jail, that's a bonus. Preventative policing doesn't work through sanctions but through intervention and deterrence (the invasiveness of which are, I accept, moderated by polling).
We may feel that (y * x) is too low to justify detaining (1 - y) * x innocent people, but that's a question of numbers, not principles.
Jesus Christ. Yes it is a matter of principles. It's the same reason we don't round up and imprison large numbers of young black males seeing as y>0 and we'd keep criminals off the street. We don't do this because we've crunched the numbers and decided it's not worth it, we don't do this because it's fucking wrong.
#70 is wrong because the Nazis killed Jews not because it suspected them of crimes, but simply because they were Jewish.
#72 overlooks the fact that we use exactly the same decision-making calculus in other situations, like going to war, for example. In any given war, some innocent civilians will die. Our view of the appropriateness of a war is in part determined by our opinion on whether "too many" civilians were killed in the process of achieving the war's aims.
A hypothetical policy of rounding up and imprisoning young black males is not analogous, because we are not detaining an entire group of people; rather, we are detaining specific people we have suspect of terrorism-linked activity.
We may be dead wrong about those suspicions in any given case, of course, but it's still a policy focused on individuals, not ethnic groups. We haven't detained, say, all Iraqi males between 15 and 35 years old simply because some percentage of them are likely to be terrorists.
We do NOT use this "decision-making calculus" in rounding up criminals. We don't allow warrantless searches in high crime areas because there's a higher hit rate or something. If we round up young black males we suspect are criminals, then hold them indefinitely without trial, it's still wrong.
There's the law, and everyone gets their day in court...until now.
This has everything to do with principle, and if you cannot grasp this, there's no real point in discussing it.
#72 overlooks the fact that we use exactly the same decision-making calculus in other situations, like going to war ...
It's true that disasters such as war can compromise our ability to maintain our institutions, including the institution of justice. Luckily, war between developed nations is a comparatively rare event, all the more so in recent years because of improved communications and diplomacy. Obviously no one would go to war unless overwhelmed by events, so a 'decision-making calculus' is more or less redundant ...
Do you think that our government's aggressive, due-process-lacking detention of suspected terrorists and their associates since 9-11 has had any connection at all to the lack of terror attacks since that time?
GB, even if we accept your binary argument, it would get us only as far as 'We may arrest (1-y)/x innocent people in the hopes of catching x terrorists', and doesn't address the situation at hand -- multi-year detention, no charges being filed, lack of court access, being subject to torture practices that don't work.
To expand on 79: I have seen no evidence whatsoever that coercive interrogations and the absence of due process have made the government's actions more effective. Aggressive investigation is great, and is not what I'm objecting to.
To be clear, I don't support a bill that does away with Americans' rights to due process
So anyone who thinks I do support the bill, either read the thread or give me some of what you're smoking.
My point, which I spelled out in #64, is that some tactics we reject on principle may nonetheless be effective. Stealing is wrong, for example, but that doesn't mean you can't get money by doing it.
Have our aggressive detention policies had any impact on stopping terror plots or weakening terror groups? Unless y=0, yes they have. But it is probably the case that (1-y)*x is too high for this policy to be desirable or justifiable — even if we didn't oppose it on principle, which we should.
I would pour a forty on the ground for my Constitution, but instead I think I'll send that money to the ACLU.
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 5:49 PM
There's always the possibilty that Bush will have a change of heart and veto the bill. Maybe we should write letters to him.
Posted by Brock Landers | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 5:54 PM
I'll say this for Brock: he never gives in to despair.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 5:58 PM
You know, I might believe that one or two of those Dems are in trouble and had to do this to hang onto a seat. I don't follow the senate races in South Dakota.
But that is definitely *not* true of Lieberman. That vote was just an expression of his pure, craven, authoritarian-loving, fascist-trending, lick-spittle Bush-worshipping.
He's going to rot in hell. Maybe one circle out from Cheney, but still within screaming distance.
Posted by kid bitzer | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 5:59 PM
What's up with Stabenow?
Posted by Bostoniangirl | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 6:01 PM
I absolutely love this (from the NYTimes):
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who helped draft the legislation during negotiations with the White House, said the measure would set up a system for treating detainees that the nation could be proud of. He said the goal ''is to render justice to the terrorists, even though they will not render justice to us.''
I cannot even express the contempt I feel for that lying bastard right now, because I'm afraid I'll say something truly distasteful. Also:
"The habeas corpus language in this bill is as legally abusive of rights guaranteed in the Constitution as the actions at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and secret prisons that were physically abusive of detainees,'' said Sen. Carl Levin, the top Democrat on the Armed Services panel.
That's the best line he could come up with? Really? That's pretty fucking lame.
Posted by Brock Landers | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 6:08 PM
I also think this might be presentable as the overreach that it is. Of course, I also believe in the tooth fairy.
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 6:08 PM
So, minor props for my Republican Senator, I suppose.
Is this (a) an expression of Chafee's personal conviction and independence, or (b) a typical craven example of Chafee voting against his party only when it doesn't matter?
Posted by mrh | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 6:09 PM
FUCKIN A!!!! Menendez and Lautenberg both told me they were against! Loutenberg's inarticulate intern told me it was a top issue in the senator's view!
Posted by Clownæsthesiologist | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 6:12 PM
So I confess I haven't really read the text of the bill, just secondhand reports: can anyone torture Muslims now, or just members of our intelligence services and armed forces? Like, the next time ogged makes a sexist comment, is it now legal for us to waterboard him?
Posted by Brock Landers | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 6:12 PM
What the fuck are my senators thinking? They come from New Jersey for God's sake!
Posted by Clownæsthesiologist | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 6:13 PM
See a tongue-in-cheek visual of the Grand Opening of "Tortureland"...here:
www.thoughttheater.com
Posted by Daniel DiRito | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 6:15 PM
Menendez is probably thinking he's down in the polls and this will help (I sure hope he's wrong). No idea on Lautenberg or Stabenow; the rest are pretty predictable, unfortunately.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 6:16 PM
A better title for this post may have been, "Does anyone have any Scope?"
Posted by Adam Kotsko | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 6:19 PM
Here are some suitable scopes, Adam.
Posted by Felix | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 6:25 PM
next up: the surveillance bill! because what's the use in the ability to throw your political enemies in jail indefinitely without the secret means of discovering them?!
otherwise known as the oh shit, wish I hadn't blogged that right-left combo!
Posted by Anonymous Bosch | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 6:27 PM
Also: if the vote was this lopsided, a fillibuster probably wouldn't have worked. Presumably there are some Democrats who voted it down but who wouldn't have gone so far as to support a fillibuster.
We must liquidate the Democrats and form a new opposition party.
Posted by Adam Kotsko | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 6:29 PM
15, "change of heart" is just a metaphor.
Posted by sam k | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 6:32 PM
It was a joke, of course, but I think a Bush assasination is the worst possible thing that could ever happen. Ogged gets it right. This is the shit they pass when we're more or less safe.
Posted by sam k | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 6:34 PM
I was making a reference to the Family Guy episode where a teenage Stewie explains that he got wine coolers by "doing some stuff for a guy in the parking lot," then asks "Does anyone have any Scope?"
As in: THE MOUTHWASH.
Posted by Adam Kotsko | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 6:38 PM
Sure, I was referring to 15.
Posted by sam k | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 6:39 PM
20: I know. 15 was a joke.
Posted by Felix | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 6:42 PM
We didn't get any wine coolers, though.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 6:46 PM
"We must liquidate the Democrats and form a new opposition party."
A-fucking-men.
Posted by Anderson | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 6:47 PM
This makes me sick to my stomach.
Posted by joeo | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 6:48 PM
I think a Bush assasination is the worst possible thing that could ever happen.
I think the best thing that could happen is for Bush to choke to death on a muffin right after Cheney gets mauled to death by a rogue hippopotamus right after Nancy Pelosi gets sworn in as Speaker of the House.
Posted by strasmangelo jones | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 6:48 PM
oh, crap. my go-cart isn't quite as fast as the other kid's go-cart.
well, son. Let's shit on it and set it on fire! that way, we're sure to win tomorrow!
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 6:49 PM
I went to South Dakota with the DCCC to work for Herseth. More even than her vote on the bankruptcy bill, her vote for this detainee bill makes me regret that.
Posted by Bostoniangirl | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 6:50 PM
"We must liquidate the Democrats and form a new opposition party."
Seriously, Adam. I'll bet I'm as pissed off as you are, but under your plan? Bush is declared proconsul for life before your new party gets 100 signatures.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 6:53 PM
You know in this two party system of ours how only one party seems to feel the need to have a couple of firearms and some ammo on hand? Not good. Just saying.
Posted by gswift | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 6:55 PM
Proconsulship follows on consulship. If Bush wants to be anything for life, why not stick with consulship?
Incidentally, this kind of shit is why I'm not really so upset at the idea that irreversible global warming might kill 95% of the human population.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 6:56 PM
God, this pisses me off. I'm actually a little scared, now, living in this country.
I called my senators, left my numbers, gave them the what-for and.... hold on a sec. I gotta get the door. If I'm not back in 15 minutes, call my family and tell 'em I'm at th
Posted by Rich | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 6:56 PM
31: exactly. he'll be consul so fast, by the time that 100th sig gets signed, he's already graduated.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 6:59 PM
oh, and also: prick.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 6:59 PM
An appropriate quote, but I can't remember from whom:
"How many people had to die for us to win our freedoms because apparently it only takes 3000 deaths to lose them."
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 7:00 PM
26: The so-called "worst-case scenario" of a Bush assassination is (a) physically impossible to do in the real world and (b) not really the worst case.
The true worst case would be a failed assassination attempt on Bush -- which any attempt would necessarily be.
Posted by Adam Kotsko | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 7:03 PM
30 actually makes a very good point. I've been sort of half-wanting to buy a gun for a really long damn time, and now might be the time to finally act on that impulse. Not that I'm about to go do anything with it. Just.... because.
Posted by Brock Landers | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 7:10 PM
And to think I called Nelson's office this afternoon to encourage him to support the filibuster.
Posted by J— | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 7:17 PM
28: I worked with the DCCC for Ben Chandler in Kentucky a few months before that, and that he voted for this bill is really pissing me off. You reminded me that I need to call his office about that.
Posted by Matt F | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 7:25 PM
8: I've never cast a vote for any Chafee, and don't plan to. That said, even with the election going on, I'd be willing to bet that Linc's vote today represented his own views, as well as his political self-interest. I think he probably would have done it even if the political pressure in Washington were higher on him. A vote in favor would be too much of a break with what the Chafee name means for him to do it, I think.
Posted by JL | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 7:41 PM
We gave all this away, and there hasn't even been another attack.
This sounds like that old NYT standby, "More people than ever before are in prison, but crime is down!"
Posted by Gaijin Biker | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 7:54 PM
Don't forget to wipe, GB.
Posted by standpipe b | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 8:01 PM
The only good thing I can say about the vote is that my Senators voted "No" so I don't feel like the last 48 hours were completely in vain.
Posted by Anarch | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 8:58 PM
30 - About the best spin I could put on all of this is that the last several years have been a vast, brilliant strategy designed to bring the left around on the issue of gun control...
Posted by cerebrocrat | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 8:59 PM
41: Think your causality or time arrow is going the wrong way in that analogy, just sayin', unless the terrorists haven't attacked because they presaged that if they didn't attack, we'd pass a really stupid law.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 9:02 PM
I really just profoundly fail to understand what motivates anyone to vote for this. Yes, some people are in it for the political narrative, but aside from that. (Is it insane for me to even be thinking that there is an "aside from that"?) Is it sheerly the retroactive factor, to protect people who have already done the awful things and might go to jail? Is there seriously anyone who thinks that this legislation makes America safer? What's it all for, anyhow?
Posted by redfoxtailshrub | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 9:05 PM
The defenses I've heard from average joe blog commenters indicate that they think this only applies to foreign terrorists, and of course we want our boys to be able to do what they have to in order to get information and save our lives.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 9:11 PM
Why the FUCK do people assume that the government will get anything right, ever? Good fucking fuckity fuck. These are the guys that give you receipts if you fill out the simplest paperwork, because they know you will want to track it when they screw something up.
What the fuck is wrong with people that they're willing to say, oh, sure, they can't make the trains run on time or get my passport processed properly, but I'm sure in the stress of war they'll translate the Urdu they don't speak perfectly when handed over the local shopkeeper who fuckity fuck fuck fuck. Don't we even want a receipt for people so we can find them in case, just like everything else this administration touches, makes a boo-boo and we need to fix it?
Why are people such trusting fucking retards?
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 9:18 PM
Oh, in case it wasn't obvious, I'm not the huggycomfort me type like Becks. She's a better person.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 9:22 PM
I'm not better, just emotionally exhausted.
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 9:29 PM
We could go on a mission; you hug people after I hit them and tell them to wake up. Sort of like good cop bad cop.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 9:36 PM
Wait, could this be a naked hug? Cause that would be like, especially reassuring.
Posted by gswift | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 9:37 PM
52: To quote the little girl on the Colbert Report: "Nekkid nekkid nekkid! Nekkid is the best!"
Posted by Anarch | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 9:41 PM
Wha? I thot she was talking about Abe.
Posted by Clownæsthesiologist | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 9:43 PM
You say "potato", I say "nekkid".
Posted by Anarch | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 9:49 PM
Hey, I wonder what Glenn Reynolds thinks?
Phew.
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 9:51 PM
You know, I'm sick of these fucking so-called libertarian lawyers who mouth off about every goddamn thing they have no fucking clue about suddenly playing the 'would be irresponsible to speculate' card when it comes to something where if they kept to their libertarian principles they'd have to do more than kiss the GOP's ass creatively.
Oh, and in case anyone was wondering: The Bill of Rights? Says person, not citizen.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 9:55 PM
57: The Volokh people in particular have really disgraced themselves.
I made several attempts to comment on Orin Kerr's feeble defensive whinge of a post ("but you're not allowed not to like me! I'm ever so smart!"). In the end I just couldn't bring myself to do anything more than scream all-caps obscenities at him, which didn't seem worth it: it would only have made him smugger.
Posted by Felix | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 10:08 PM
Is it in fact true that citizens can't be detained indefinitely under this bill? I thought the executive's say so was sufficient to classify someone as an enemy combatant. I thought I read something about this today, but now can't find it.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 10:12 PM
Here it is. The protection afforded by citizenship might not be real.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 10:14 PM
I'd like to see some detailed analysis of that though.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 10:18 PM
Yeah, I had the VC in mind. Oh we can make predictions, serious high minded ones about AIDS transmission and why we should discourage bis from being gay, but don't ask us to talk about the law. That's speculating.
I'm going to blow a gasket.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 10:32 PM
Kerr is easily the least objectionable of the VC crowd, so I'm willing to give him a bit of a pass. I don't read VC, though, so perhaps he's worse and more disingenous than I remember him being.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 09-28-06 10:34 PM
#42: Don't forget to wipe, GB.
That's what I love about Unfogged; the stimulating debates.
Question for the group: Do you think that our government's aggressive, due-process-lacking detention of suspected terrorists and their associates since 9-11 has had any connection at all to the lack of terror attacks since that time? Or is every single person we've detained an innocent victim of mistaken identity and misplaced suspicion?
To be clear, I don't support a bill that does away with Americans' rights to due process, and I expect that to the extent this bill does, it will be found unconstitutional. And yet that doesn't mean the tactics it authorizes are ineffective at stopping terrorist plots. Rather, they most likely are effective, but we should reject them anyway because they undermine our other goals and values. And we should be aware that we are making a trade-off in doing so.
Posted by Gaijin Biker | Link to this comment | 09-29-06 1:29 AM
Do you think that our government's aggressive, due-process-lacking detention of suspected terrorists and their associates since 9-11 has had any connection at all to the lack of terror attacks since that time? Or is every single person we've detained an innocent victim of mistaken identity and misplaced suspicion?
False dichotomy, but the answer to your first question is "probably not".
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 09-29-06 2:26 AM
Do you think that our government's aggressive, due-process-lacking detention of suspected terrorists and their associates since 9-11 has had any connection at all to the lack of terror attacks since that time?
And do you really believe this administration is catching bona fide terrorists right and left, but not telling us? They crow every chance they get, like with Padilla. And every time it turns out they're full of shit.
Posted by gswift | Link to this comment | 09-29-06 2:35 AM
That's what I love about Unfogged, the fact that someone can make an obviously inflammatory nonsequitur and then whimper when people don't take him seriously! Come on. 41 was a lame throwaway comment at best.
So there's a lot going on here, but I'll try to conduct an organized response. I'm not sure what you mean by 'tactics', so I'm going to take it to me the combination of detention, torture, and lack of judicial oversight -- the sorts of things the bill addressed today.
Or is every single person we've detained an innocent victim of mistaken identity and misplaced suspicion?
Innocent of what? Part of the problem with this situation is that most of the detainees haven't been charged with anything and haven't seen a courtroom. It's impossible to say whether they're innocent or not because I have no idea what they're supposed to be charged with. Plotting an attack? Being in Kabul during the invasion? Fighting against the U.S. army during the invasion? Guilty of what?
Granting for the sake of argument that we have defined innocent, I'm sure that not every single person is an innocent victim, but I don't need it to be every single person in order for it to be a gross miscarriage of justice. We're talking about pretty severe torture tactics, and arguing that we should use them as indiscriminately as possible.
And yet that doesn't mean the tactics it authorizes are ineffective at stopping terrorist plots.
Bad argument. It isn't positive evidence that the specific tactics authorized stopped a terrorist attack just because we haven't had one on American soil since 9/11. (We could spin that into an argument for pre 9/11 tactics; we hadn't been attacked since 1993!) It isn't positive evidence either way, though I'd be more inclined to cite the squashing of al-Qaeda in Afghanistan & an increase on border security as probably the biggest reason there hasn't been a coordinated attack on U.S. soil.
Especially given that no-one can tell us why the detainees are there; if you want to make the case that the tactics are what's preventing another 9/11, you're going to have to make the argument, not just assume it that because the tactics existed at the same time, they must be responsible for the lack of attacks. I have about as much evidence for the lack of attacks due to my starting graduate school around the same time.
So not too much can be said about the tactics' effectiveness at all, and we can't judge how many detainees are innocent and how many are plotters. Here's the thing; just playing the odds, most of the detainees are guilty of something pretty mundanely soldierly. Treating a Taliban G.I. as if he were someone who could plot 9/11 is, human rights issues aside, a gigantic waste of resources.
And on top of that, you'd have to make the case that such tactics would be made less effective if we had judicial oversight regarding the status of the detainees.
Why ramp it up? Give me a good reason why giving someone a chance to figure out what he's charged with makes it impossible to fight terror. Because we seem to be assuming here, against the evidence of a criminal justice system that works, mostly, that if we even make the charges public, then... what?
What's so wrong about allowing the courts to serve as a check on police and military power?
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 09-29-06 2:41 AM
And yet that doesn't mean the tactics it authorizes are ineffective at stopping terrorist plots.
And no, it's not going to be effective. Effective counter terrorism is dependant on intel from the natives. That's why Special Forces and others who actually do a lot of counter terrorism work don't fucking torture people. Nobody's going to come forward to work with our guys and give them intel if they think they might be abused. This is insanely counterproductive.
Posted by gswift | Link to this comment | 09-29-06 2:46 AM
Let's say that x = the number of people the US has detained as suspected terrorists or terrorist supporters.
Now, let's say y is a number between 0 and 1 reflecting the percentage of those people who are actually terrorists or terrorist supporters.
Unless y=0, then our aggressive detention policies have kept at least some terrorists or supporters from continuing their activities.
We may feel that (y * x) is too low to justify detaining (1 - y) * x innocent people, but that's a question of numbers, not principles.
Note also that the above analysis has absolutely no connection to torture or other coercive interrogation techniques, which are another issue entirely. It's focused simply on the value of getting terrorists "off the streets".
Posted by Gaijin Biker | Link to this comment | 09-29-06 3:05 AM
GB: You're assuming a binaristic logical structure that isn't applicable here, as well as assuming a fixed supply of "terrorists or terrorist supporters". Plus, your argument that it's a "question of numbers, not principles" could equally be used to justify the Holocaust: after all, presumably one of the Jews murdered was probably the equivalent of a "terrorist or terrorist supporter" to Nazi Germany, so really we're just talking "numbers, not principles".
And also: yay, Godwin.
Posted by Anarch | Link to this comment | 09-29-06 3:37 AM
69: Detention on that basis will take you pretty much all the way to the door of Judge Death.
For consistency, the same approach surely has to apply to all other crimes: all violent crimes, at least. But if everyone down to the last innocent voting citizen isn't to end up in jail, or subject to sanctions of some sort, one refinement you'd have to add would be to poll detainees for their preference. Maybe things would normalise somewhere around the 50% in, 50% out mark: who knows.
Justice isn't implemented through game theory. It centers on attempts to determine guilt after the fact. If there's a prophylactic effect from keeping convicts in jail, that's a bonus. Preventative policing doesn't work through sanctions but through intervention and deterrence (the invasiveness of which are, I accept, moderated by polling).
Posted by Charlie Whitaker | Link to this comment | 09-29-06 3:39 AM
We may feel that (y * x) is too low to justify detaining (1 - y) * x innocent people, but that's a question of numbers, not principles.
Jesus Christ. Yes it is a matter of principles. It's the same reason we don't round up and imprison large numbers of young black males seeing as y>0 and we'd keep criminals off the street. We don't do this because we've crunched the numbers and decided it's not worth it, we don't do this because it's fucking wrong.
Posted by gswift | Link to this comment | 09-29-06 3:42 AM
#70 is wrong because the Nazis killed Jews not because it suspected them of crimes, but simply because they were Jewish.
#72 overlooks the fact that we use exactly the same decision-making calculus in other situations, like going to war, for example. In any given war, some innocent civilians will die. Our view of the appropriateness of a war is in part determined by our opinion on whether "too many" civilians were killed in the process of achieving the war's aims.
A hypothetical policy of rounding up and imprisoning young black males is not analogous, because we are not detaining an entire group of people; rather, we are detaining specific people we have suspect of terrorism-linked activity.
We may be dead wrong about those suspicions in any given case, of course, but it's still a policy focused on individuals, not ethnic groups. We haven't detained, say, all Iraqi males between 15 and 35 years old simply because some percentage of them are likely to be terrorists.
Posted by Gaijin Biker | Link to this comment | 09-29-06 4:13 AM
"have suspect of " s/b "suspect of"
Posted by Gaijin Biker | Link to this comment | 09-29-06 4:14 AM
We do NOT use this "decision-making calculus" in rounding up criminals. We don't allow warrantless searches in high crime areas because there's a higher hit rate or something. If we round up young black males we suspect are criminals, then hold them indefinitely without trial, it's still wrong.
There's the law, and everyone gets their day in court...until now.
This has everything to do with principle, and if you cannot grasp this, there's no real point in discussing it.
Posted by gswift | Link to this comment | 09-29-06 4:32 AM
#72 overlooks the fact that we use exactly the same decision-making calculus in other situations, like going to war ...
It's true that disasters such as war can compromise our ability to maintain our institutions, including the institution of justice. Luckily, war between developed nations is a comparatively rare event, all the more so in recent years because of improved communications and diplomacy. Obviously no one would go to war unless overwhelmed by events, so a 'decision-making calculus' is more or less redundant ...
Oh.
Posted by Charlie Whitaker | Link to this comment | 09-29-06 5:04 AM
GB, this isn't the time for your bullshit.
Posted by alameida | Link to this comment | 09-29-06 5:13 AM
Yay 77!
Posted by Clownæsthesiologist | Link to this comment | 09-29-06 5:43 AM
Do you think that our government's aggressive, due-process-lacking detention of suspected terrorists and their associates since 9-11 has had any connection at all to the lack of terror attacks since that time?
No.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 09-29-06 8:09 AM
GB, even if we accept your binary argument, it would get us only as far as 'We may arrest (1-y)/x innocent people in the hopes of catching x terrorists', and doesn't address the situation at hand -- multi-year detention, no charges being filed, lack of court access, being subject to torture practices that don't work.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 09-29-06 8:28 AM
To expand on 79: I have seen no evidence whatsoever that coercive interrogations and the absence of due process have made the government's actions more effective. Aggressive investigation is great, and is not what I'm objecting to.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 09-29-06 8:43 AM
#75, I refer you to my #64:
To be clear, I don't support a bill that does away with Americans' rights to due process
So anyone who thinks I do support the bill, either read the thread or give me some of what you're smoking.
My point, which I spelled out in #64, is that some tactics we reject on principle may nonetheless be effective. Stealing is wrong, for example, but that doesn't mean you can't get money by doing it.
Have our aggressive detention policies had any impact on stopping terror plots or weakening terror groups? Unless y=0, yes they have. But it is probably the case that (1-y)*x is too high for this policy to be desirable or justifiable — even if we didn't oppose it on principle, which we should.
Posted by Gaijin Biker | Link to this comment | 09-30-06 4:55 AM