In an excellent diary here, "seesdifferent" describes for us the outcome of the UK Law Lord's ruling banning the use of testimony obtained by torture. Like an earlier diary by "Londonbear", it didn't make the recommended list.
They should have been given the recommendation because the decision by our equivalent of your SCOTUS has high significance for the United States as well. The common roots of our legal systems results in the findings in the courts of both our countries being cited in the other. The Law Lords decision will make a contrary ruling by your own Supreme Court just that much harder to justify.
As the decision has been well aired I only want to deal here with one aspect of it. In their ruling, Lord Hoffman wrote of the rejection by the common-law of England and Wales centuries ago of torture as a means to an end.
He then went on to say what I find to be a quite startling statement, which I give below the fold:
"In our own century," he wrote, "many people in the United States, heirs to that common-law tradition, have felt their country dishonoured by its use of torture outside the jurisdiction and its practice of extra-legal 'rendition' of suspects to countries where they would be tortured."
What has this got to do with you and Daily Kos? Well, first you have to understand the "other-worldliness" of these Law Lords. They are not prone in their decisions to make contemporary references. That they did is remarkable enough in itself. But where did they hear this "voice of the people"? According to Lord Hoffman it was from you , in the United States. Sure they did not come on to Daily Kos and hear it, but more likely would have read about it in their clubs reading the Guardian or the Independent whilst drinking their morning cups of coffee. We know how these journalists on these papers, just as those on the BBC, use Daily Kos as reference source.
"...many people in the United States, heirs to that common-law tradition, have felt" wrote Lord Hoffman. Well he only got this, however indirectly, from the left and the amplifier for the voice of the left is Daily Kos.
This is awesome to think how much the voice of you Kossacks is making its mark not just in the United States but in Europe as well.
In a diary two weeks ago I wrote of the impact that Daily Kos and the other smaller sites on the internet were having on the news media in the UK and how this had been acknowledged in a discussion on the BBC. I explained:
You see, we have no equivalent in the UK to Daily Kos. Nor are we likely to in the short-term. There are a number of reasons for this and they will remain for some time. When Jerome and I discussed setting up European Tribune, we had high hopes of it fulfilling this role. The numbers on there are slowly growing and I would urge all Europeans to contribute to it. I can certainly think of no one better than Jerome to take it forward. Yet, I feel, it is only the support of you Americans on there that give it a critical mass at the moment. .....
My own view is that, whilst there are a large number of well supported US blogs, it is Daily Kos that gives them all a real strength. Daily Kos, through its sheer size, is a powerful amplifier of the totality of the liberal democratic voice on the internet.
To now see a Law Lords ruling that acknowledges "public" opinion regarding torture and rendition in the United States makes me even more conscious of the strength of this new media and the powerful role being played by you all through DKos that gives these concerns such prominence. For sure Lord Hoffman, or whatever newspaper he read it in, didn't pick it up from Fox News.
There are three things that I take from this:
1- I remember arguing nine months ago that the enquiry into the Kelly case, which was followed subsequently by the leak of the Downing Street Memos, would have repercussive effects over in the States and that the ball would be at its most effective if we kept bouncing these issues back and forth between our two countries. Well, I believe that we have seen this happen in this Law Lords decision and they have caught the ball that you guys threw back to them
2- With these indicators of the growing influence of our blogs we need to respond to the responsibility that it now places on us and recognise that we are moving into a new age. That means that we have to consider what the ethics and norms are of our new citizen journalism and what it requires from us if we are to grow from this point and not merely be noise in the background. This does include being more self-critical. A week ago Armando rapped my knuckles for speaking out about concerns over one blog in our liberal sphere. He was probably right to do so because of the place and time chosen- and in fairness he also rapped with equal strength the knuckles of those who objected to my comment for the manner in which this was done. Yet we must be prepared to look critically at whom we accept as our leading spokespeople and we must be prepared to keep our liberal voice clear and honest in the same way we demand of the mainstream media.
3- Markos described in his excellent C-Span interview how DKos grew out of the frustrations of the Dems who felt that the election of the Bush administration left them powerless and without voice. You still hear frequently in our diaries our repeated despair at getting change rapidly enough to avoid the increasing damage to our countries. Yet every sign that I see says that your voice is being heard, that you are effecting change and that you should not tire in your efforts.
Heck, Kossacks, you have even been heard by the deaf old ears of our stuffy, not overly alert (but today, wonderful) Law Lords. Keep on shouting through Daily Kos - but now with the added responsibility of keeping it clearer, even more precise and just as honest! Keep on - and thanks to you all!