Every night @8pmest
A big tip o' the hat to Brad Friedman over at the Bradblog for mentioning Wikileaks Informationthread 10 where we put links to and quoted his interview with Daniel Ellsberg as well as his entire sit-in for Mike Malloy on Friday.
[My thanks also to Daily Kos blogger "cedar park" for picking up Friday's show and letting folks over there know about it over the weekend.]
If you have not listened yet, please do so at the links.
1st story:
I'm sure we all remember the strange case of Giuliana Sgrena and her rescue by Italian itelligence agents, including Nicola Calipari. On their way to the airport in Baghdad, they were fired upon by over 50 bullets by American forces. They were cleared by the Americans for transport. Almost all of the bullets hit the passenger section of the car and only 1 hit the engine. From that link:
In his first major address since Friday's shooting strained relations between Washington and one of its biggest allies, Berlusconi told Italy's Senate that the car carrying agent Nicola Calipari and former hostage Giuliana Sgrena stopped immediately when a light was flashed.
The idea that Calipari was killed by friendly fire is "painful" to accept, Berlusconi said. But he reassured lawmakers: "The United States has no intention of evading the truth."
"I'm sure that in a very short time every aspect of this will be clarified," he said.
Yes, we were all reeeaally sure about that. Of course, Sgrena was not so damned sure :
"The military mission must carry on because it consolidates democracy and liberty in Iraq," Communications Minister Maurizio Gasparri was quoted as saying by the ANSA news agency. "On the other hand, we must control — but not block — the presence of civilians and journalists, who must observe rules and behavior to reduce the risks."
Sgrena, who works for the communist daily Il Manifesto, did not rule out that she was targeted, saying the United States likely disapproved of Italy's methods to secure her release, although she did not elaborate.
She was on Democracy Now! on March 14, 2007 and here is part of that interview:
AMY GOODMAN: How many shots fired?
GIULIANA SGRENA: Against the car, they found fifty-eight bullets, and fifty-seven were against the passengers of the car. Only one, the last one, was against the engine of the car. That’s why the Italian judges, they will put on trial Lozano for voluntarily killing, because if he wanted to stop the car, he has to shoot to the engines before or to the wheels of the car, and not on the majority, the great majority of the bullets against the passengers.
AMY GOODMAN: You speak English. When the car stopped, when the agent was dead, Calipari, you two were injured, the driver and you. What were the soldiers saying? Did they know who you were? Did you warn in advance that you were coming on this road?
GIULIANA SGRENA: I think that they knew. I am not sure if this patrol knew, because all the communication between the patrol and the commander were destroyed just after what happened. And so, it was—
AMY GOODMAN: Repeat that.
GIULIANA SGRENA: Yes. All the communication between the patrol and the division commander were destroyed, because when the two Italians that took part of the military commission, they went to Baghdad and they asked for the communication, because there was some differences between the testifying of the different soldiers in the patrol. But they said—
AMY GOODMAN: How could the documents be destroyed? I mean, this is an extremely high-level case. You have Calipari, who is personally close to the Italian Prime Minister at the time, Berlusconi, who is a close Bush ally—there was a massive celebration prepared for your return to Italy.
GIULIANA SGRENA: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: How could these documents have been destroyed?
GIULIANA SGRENA: Yes. That is one of the point that we can’t understand, why they destroyed. Because there was something to hide and to cancel. Because, if not, why they destroyed all the communication just after the shooting, after the killing of Calipari. This is very strange, isn’t it?
So last evening El Pais released this from Wikileaks :
EO 12958: DECL: 05/02/2015
TAGS: PREL, MOPS, KJUS, IT, IZ, IRAQI FREEDOM TAGS: PREL, MOPS, Kjus, IT, IZ, IRAQI FREEDOM
SUBJECT: IRAQ/ITALY: BERLUSCONI TRYING TO PUT CALIPARI SUBJECT: IRAQ / ITALY: BERLUSCONI TRYING TO PUT Calipari
INCIDENT BEHIND US - ITALIAN REPORT FINDS NO INDIVIDUAL INCIDENT BEHIND U.S. - ITALIAN REPORT FINDS NO INDIVIDUAL
RESPONSIBILITY RESPONSIBILITY
Classified By: Ambassador Mel Sembler, reasons 1.4 b and d. Classified By: Ambassador Mel Sembler, reasons 1.4 b and d.
UPDATE!! For some reason I can't copy and paste from that site without it turning into nonsense. So I ask that you go and read it.
Now, think about that. We now understand eye-witness accounts have said that if it was not intentional, then they have a war to sell you in the desert. And of course Berlusconi is a lying bastard. And our "people" writing this cable show just how much the U.S. really could give a shit about the truth:
While our instinct at Post is to defend the US report and criticize the Italian Post is to Defend the U.S. report and criticize the Italian
one, we realize the consequences of doing so could be one, we realize the Consequences of doing so Could Be
asymmetrical: while the criticism in the Italian report is Asymmetrical: while the Criticism in the Italian report is
unlikely to have serious negative consequences for the USG, unlikely to Have Serious Negative Consequences for the USG,
if the GOI appears to be disloyal to its public servants - or if the GOI Appears to Be disloyal to ITS public servants - or
to be rolling over to please the USG in this matter, the To Be rolling over to please the USG in this matter, the
consequences for Berlusconi's government and Italy's Consequences for Berlusconi's Government and Italy's
commitment in Iraq could be severe. Commitment in Iraq Could Be severe.
Wow. Read that again. Now, it gets even creepier:
- (S) As to the report itself, the Italians generally (S) As to the report Itself, the Italians Generally
described it as supporting the "tragic accident" thesis, and Supporting Described it as the "tragic accident" thesis, and
highlighted the following: Highlighted the Following:
....
- This last point specifically Designed to Discourage WAS
further investigation by the prosecuting magistrates, since Further investigation by the Prosecuting magistrates, sincere
under Italian law they apparently can investigate cases of They Apparently under Italian law Investigate Cases of dog
intentional homicide against Italian citizens outside of intentional homicide Outside of Citizens Against Italian
Italy, but not cases of unintentional homicide. Italy, But Not Cases of unintentional homicide. (NOTE: Our (NOTE: Our
contacts warn that Italian magistrates are infamous for Italian magistrates contacts warn That Are infamous for
bending such laws to suit their purposes, so it remains to be Such bending Laws to suit Their Purposes, So It Remains To Be
seen whether the GOI tactic will work in this regard.) Also, GOI seen whether the tactic will work in this Regard.) Also,
Castellaneta told us later that the GOI was hoping the Later Castellaneta Told us the GOI Was Hoping That the
prosecutors would find that, because the killing was Prosecutors Would Find That, Because the killing WAS
unintentional, there would not be grounds for a case of unintentional, There Would Not Be Grounds for a case of
"excessive legitimate defense." "Excessive Legitimate defense."
Ok. Deep breath. Here are two shorter articles:
Jeff Stein reports that Germany’s top security official:
Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere also he said he was opposed to financial entities cutting off payments to WikiLeaks under pressure from Washington.
"If this occurs under pressure from the U.S. government, I don't think it is acceptable," de Maiziere, a confidant of Chancellor Angela Merkel, said in an interview with the German weekly Der Spiegel. "If a company freely decides to do so, then that is a corporate decision, but it is also politically problematic. I am a big advocate of what is known as net neutrality. This means that providers are compelled to transmit content without political or commercial pre-selection."
For background on the 2nd story later in the diary, we have Atul Gawande at The New Yorker from March 30, 2009 :
After a few months without regular social contact, however, his experience proved no different from that of the P.O.W.s or hostages, or the majority of isolated prisoners whom researchers have studied: he started to lose his mind. He talked to himself. He paced back and forth compulsively, shuffling along the same six-foot path for hours on end. Soon, he was having panic attacks, screaming for help. He hallucinated that the colors on the walls were changing. He became enraged by routine noises—the sound of doors opening as the guards made their hourly checks, the sounds of inmates in nearby cells. After a year or so, he was hearing voices on the television talking directly to him. He put the television under his bed, and rarely took it out again.
One of the paradoxes of solitary confinement is that, as starved as people become for companionship, the experience typically leaves them unfit for social interaction. Once, Dellelo was allowed to have an in-person meeting with his lawyer, and he simply couldn’t handle it. After so many months in which his primary human contact had been an occasional phone call or brief conversations with an inmate down the tier, shouted through steel doors at the top of their lungs, he found himself unable to carry on a face-to-face conversation. He had trouble following both words and hand gestures and couldn’t generate them himself. When he realized this, he succumbed to a full-blown panic attack.
Craig Haney, a psychology professor at the University of California at Santa Cruz, received rare permission to study a hundred randomly selected inmates at California’s Pelican Bay supermax, and noted a number of phenomena. First, after months or years of complete isolation, many prisoners "begin to lose the ability to initiate behavior of any kind—to organize their own lives around activity and purpose," he writes. "Chronic apathy, lethargy, depression, and despair often result. . . . In extreme cases, prisoners may literally stop behaving," becoming essentially catatonic.
Second, almost ninety per cent of these prisoners had difficulties with "irrational anger," compared with just three per cent of the general population.* Haney attributed this to the extreme restriction, the totality of control, and the extended absence of any opportunity for happiness or joy. Many prisoners in solitary become consumed with revenge fanasies.
...
It wasn’t always like this. The wide-scale use of isolation is, almost exclusively, a phenomenon of the past twenty years. In 1890, the United States Supreme Court came close to declaring the punishment to be unconstitutional. Writing for the majority in the case of a Colorado murderer who had been held in isolation for a month, Justice Samuel Miller noted that experience had revealed "serious objections" to solitary confinement:
A considerable number of the prisoners fell, after even a short confinement, into a semi-fatuous condition, from which it was next to impossible to arouse them, and others became violently insane; others, still, committed suicide; while those who stood the ordeal better were not generally reformed, and in most cases did not recover suffcient mental activity to be of any subsequent service to the community.
None of us should ever take what is happening currently in this world as the standard norm no matter what we are discussing.
2nd story:
Glenn Greenwald announces that the New York Times spilled military secrets on it's front page. He wonders why, oh why, is not one person calling for their assasination:
Mark Mazzetti and Dexter Filkins expose very sensitive classified government secrets -- and not just routine secrets, but high-level, imminent planning for American covert military action in a foreign country
Here is a bit from the NYTimes treason, erm, I mean article:
The decision to expand American military activity in Pakistan, which would almost certainly have to be approved by President Obama himself, would amount to the opening of a new front in the nine-year-old war, which has grown increasingly unpopular among Americans. It would run the risk of angering a Pakistani government that has been an uneasy ally in the war in Afghanistan, particularly if it leads to civilian casualties or highly public confrontations.
Still, one senior American officer said, "We’ve never been as close as we are now to getting the go-ahead to go across."
The officials who described the proposal and the intelligence operations declined to be identified by name discussing classified information.
Um, I bet Manning would have said the same thing.....
Greenwald:
Indeed, the NYT reporters several times acknowledge that public awareness of these operations could trigger serious harm ("inside Pakistan, [] the movement of American forces has been largely prohibited because of fears of provoking a backlash"). Note, too, that Mazzetti and Filkins did not acquire these government secrets by just passively sitting around and having them delivered out of the blue. To the contrary: they interviewed multiple officials both in Washington and in Afghanistan, offered several of them anonymity to induce them to reveal secrets, and even provoked officials to provide detailed accounts of past secret actions in Pakistan, including CIA-directed attacks by Afghans inside that country. Indeed, Mazzetti told me this morning: "We've been working on this for a little while. . . . It's been slow going. The release of the AfPak review gave a timeliness to the story, but this has been in the works for several weeks."
In my view, the NYT article represents exactly the kind of secret information journalists ought to be revealing; it's a pure expression of why the First Amendment guarantees a free press. There are few things more damaging to basic democratic values than having the government conduct or escalate a secret war beyond public debate or even awareness. By exposing these classified plans, Mazzetti and Filkins did exactly what good journalists ought to do: inform the public about important actions taken or being considered by their government which the government is attempting to conceal.
....
The question that emerges from all of this is obvious, but also critical for those who believe Wikileaks and Julian Assange should be prosecuted for the classified information they have published: should the NYT editors and reporters who just spilled America's secrets to the world be criminally prosecuted as well? After all, WikiLeaks has only exposed past conduct, and never -- like the NYT just did -- published imminent covert military plans. Moreover, WikiLeaks has never published "top secret" material, unlike what the NYT has done many times in the past (the NSA program, the SWIFT banking program) and what they quite possibly did here as well. Mazzetti this morning said in response to my question about that: "not sure on the classification, although I think all of the special operations activity is usually given Top Secret designation."
Does Dianne Feinstein believe that Mazzetti, Filkins and their editors should be prosecuted under the Espionage Act? Do Joe Biden and Mitch McConnell believe these two reporters are "high-tech terrorists?" Is Eric Holder going to boast about the aggressive actions his DOJ is taking to criminally investigate the NYT for these disclosures?
Speaking of Manning, his lawyer posted at his blog. Here is a bit:
Article 13 safeguards against unlawful pretrial punishment and embodies the precept that an accused is presumed innocent until proven guilty. Article 13 provides that:
No person, while being held for trial, may be subjected to punishment or penalty other than arrest or confinement upon the charges pending against him, nor shall the arrest or confinement imposed upon him be any more rigorous than the circumstances required to insure his presence, but he may be subjected to minor punishment during that period for infractions of discipline.
....
If a military judge determines that a servicemember has been illegally punished prior to trial, she has substantial discretion to grant administrative credit, usually in the form of additional pretrial confinement credit, or even grant an outright dismissal of the charges. See, e.g., United States v. Fulton, 55 M.J. 88 (2001) (holding that the military judge has the authority to dismiss charges as a remedy for unlawful pretrial punishment). There is no set formula for calculating the appropriate amount of credit for unlawful pretrial punishment in violation of Article 13, UCMJ. For example, in United States v. Suzuki, the military judge awarded three days credit for every one day of illegal pretrial confinement. 14 M.J. 491 (C.M.A. 1983).
Basic links:
Wikileaks cables
Dec 21 cables
Unofficial Wikileaks information source
Wikileaks Twitter
Greg Mitchell and his The Nation Wikileaks blog
Guardian cables page
Glenn Greenwald
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
US Constitution Article 1, Section 9, Clause 3 No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.
Near v. Minnesota
Near v. Minnesota, 283 U.S. 697 (1931), was a United States Supreme Court decision that recognized the freedom of the press by roundly rejecting prior restraints on publication, a principle that was applied to free speech generally in subsequent jurisprudence. The Court ruled that a Minnesota law that targeted publishers of "malicious" or "scandalous" newspapers violated the First Amendment to the United States Constitution (as applied through the Fourteenth Amendment). Legal scholar and columnist Anthony Lewis called Near the Court's "first great press case."[1]
It was later a key precedent in New York Times Co. v. United States (1971), in which the Court ruled against the Nixon administration's attempt to enjoin publication of the Pentagon Papers.
New York Times Co. v. United States
New York Times Co. v. United States, 403 U.S. 713 (1971), was a United States Supreme Court per curiam decision. The ruling made it possible for the New York Times and Washington Post newspapers to publish the then-classified Pentagon Papers without risk of government censure.
President Richard Nixon had claimed executive authority to force the Times to suspend publication of classified information in its possession. The question before the court was whether the constitutional freedom of the press under the First Amendment was subordinate to a claimed Executive need to maintain the secrecy of information. The Supreme Court ruled that First Amendment did protect the New York Times' right to print said materials.
As Assange told Time: "It is not our goal to achieve a more transparent society; it's our goal to achieve a more just society."
Have at it. And again, thanks to Brad Friedman for mentioning our Informationthread 10!!