Mar 24th, 2009
Posted by Suzanne Ito, ACLU at 5:48pm	National Security

"This Is About the Law"

Last night, George Washington University constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley delivered some refreshing straight-talk on the Rachel Maddow Show. Noting that conducting a criminal investigation into the authorization of torture and abuse of detainees by Bush administration officials is not only about values but is about enforcing the law, the good professor called for the appointment of a special prosecutor — just like we did:

When we talk about values, the most important one is that the president has to enforce the laws. He can‘t pick and choose who would be popular to prosecute.

… He should be appointing a special prosecutor. There is no question about that. This is the most well-defined and publicly known crime I have seen in my lifetime. There is no debate about it. There is no ambiguity. It is well known.

You‘ve got people involved who have basically admitted the elements of a war crime that we are committed to prosecuting.

…The easiest thing [for President Obama] to do is get out of the way, say, “You know what, this is not about values. This is about the law. I took an oath to God to enforce the law. And you know what, fellow? You are going to be a target of an investigation. And maybe you are not guilty. Maybe you are. But it is not for me to decide it. It‘s for a special prosecutor.”

Turley is right, and the last week we wrote to Attorney General Holder renewing our call for him to appoint an independent prosecutor. There is more than enough evidence already in the public domain to warrant a criminal investigation. And after eight years of weak oversight, Congress must do its part, too, and form its own select committee to investigate these wrongs. As Dr. Turley says, this isn't about politics. It's about the law.

Permalink |	National Security

1. Vic Livingston Says:
   Mar 25th, 2009 at 10:34am

   URGENT TO ATTY. GEN. ERIC HOLDER (staff, please copy and forward)

   Mr. Holder: Please listen to Jonathan Turley. Appoint a special prosecutor.

   The Bush-era "extrajudicial punishment network" is harming Americans and violating their civil and human rights.

   This is a federally-enabled GRASSROOTS apparatus that has corrupted law enforcement nationwide and has made possible an egregious bypass of the judicial system and a denial of due process rights.

   ***

   Team Obama, you MUST immediately join with GOP defenders of the Constitution to dismantle the nationwide extrajudicial punishment network...

   ...authoritarian bureaucrats and security/intel officers and their nationwide network of citizen vigilantes fronted by federally-funded volunteer programs.

   This nationwide, Gestapo-like operation has made a mockery of the judicial system for the past eight years and has claimed many unjustly "targeted" victims from all strata of society.

   Crimes against humanity are being committed across the nation via the use of so-called "directed energy (microwave radiation) weapons" which the Bush D.O.J. recently confirmed are being widely deployed to police forces nationwide.

   These RADIATION weapons emit silent, pulsed bursts of various forms of radiation -- degrading and damaging the health of those on the receiving end as well as their operators.

   This weaponry has NO PLACE in civilized society -- much less in the hands of security personnel who interact with the public.

   The widespread deployment of this weaponry virtually assures its misuse.

   Imagine if rogue actors tried to use its silent, deadly force to induce illness or to disorient, prematurely age, sicken or disable our political leaders.

   Perhaps they already have.

   Victims of this extrajudicial punishment network also see their finances and livelihoods expropriated and destroyed by coordinated "multi-agency action" "programs of personal destruction" that deny them due process of law while degrading their lives and destroying their families.

   The IRS, under Bush-Cheney, has been transmogrified into an ideological weapon of social control and recrimination by these covert "multi-agency actions."

   Obama administration officials must address these abuses IMMEDIATELY, before these affronts to the Constitution destroy more American families -- and subvert the Obama presidency.

   *******************************************

   IT IS DAY 65 OF THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION.

   DO YOU *REALLY* KNOW WHAT YOUR SECURITY/INTEL 'MULTI-AGENCY ACTION CENTER' IS UP TO?

   http:/www.nowpublic.com/world/gestapo-usa-govt-funded-vigil ante-network-terrorizes-america

   http://www.nowpublic.com/world/ domestic-torture-radiation-weaponry-americas-horrific-shame

   OR (if links are corrupted):

   http://My.NowPublic.com/scrivener

2. Paen Says:
   Mar 25th, 2009 at 1:04pm

   I think that this should be handled by the International Tribunal at the Hague
   because politics would muddle things to much in the U.S.

3. Jeff Peterson Says:
   Mar 25th, 2009 at 6:34pm

   Do you two bloggers believe in the second ammdment? I know you believe in the first. What about the 26th. Are you going to pick and choose what the government should enforce? The current administration is a facist dictatorship. "LIVE FREE OR DIE"

4. Jeff Peterson Says:
   Mar 25th, 2009 at 6:41pm

   "The easiest thing [for President Obama] to do is get out of the way, say, “You know what, this is not about values. This is about the law. I took an oath to God to enforce the law. And you know what, fellow? You are going to be a target of an investigation. And maybe you are not guilty. Maybe you are. But it is not for me to decide it. It‘s for a special prosecutor.”

   Wonder when he is going to go after Obama for nor enforcing the immagration laws? What about those doctors that kill babys? The "Pro Death" folks would love that. Why doesn't the ACLU support that?

5. ggg Says:
   Mar 25th, 2009 at 7:17pm

   Our constitution does not allow subservience to world bodies that redounds to individual Americans that I am aware of.

   You can be sure Holder will do nothing decisive but pander to the media, which govt and academe are complicit with.

   Study the origination of the General Education Board, and understand why Leno's college grads on the street cant name all 3 branches for one. Study Edward Bernays govt & industry "works".

   What Americans fail to realize is that while our govt maybe the head of the octopus, its brain and control comes from the masters of the universe who control the whole world's money with the paper they stole the peoples gold with.

   The Morgan/Dems vs the Rockefeller/Reps, some of banking's fiercest and most powerful competitors joined hands in the FEDERAL RESERVE they created after King Geo III's model that had him so broke it caused the revolution.

   The world's most powerful elite conspirators centered in, and decendent from, the Rothschild banking empire, with wealth beyond the belief of mere mortals, has systematically since before they grabbed the BofE, been taking over control of most nations banks on the planet (except the finally vanquished beligerents like the murdered Czar & his familyhis wife and children - and NOT for the good of the people anywhere. (do a search on David Rockefeller - see how many digs he's got WW - and one of the world's only men to fly to Moscow whenever he wanted during the "cold war" in part of his power's creation, WW2 & the WW1 that practially guaranteed it.

   Our history is twisted by the powers that write it, then disseminate in our mandatory indoctrinations and near fully owned media - the newspapers of clout of which they bought controlling interests over 100 years ago.

   These same people are responsible for the regulations via their bought and emplaced govt puppets, (Reagan, Clinton Bush's, McCain & Obama come most immediately to mind), that make them cartel monopolies with guaranteed profits and splendidly profitable govt contracts for what Americans would never demand to begin with, unless cowed by every panic and war created since the revolution.

   Bankers learned wars made them the most money possible, lending to both sides at once doubly so, but through different branches. ie Napolean was financed by the French Rothschilds and Wellington by Nathan R in the sovereign City of London eventually under his control.

   There is real history to be found apart from what govt and its benefitted cheerleaders have inculcated the nation with:

   Those who understand our future depends in a renewed freedom of peace and prosperity based on a unalderated constituion govt stays bond to instead of the current situation of elite power using it to put us in servitude to the Davos crowd of presumpters over our lives, depends on understanding who really pulls Americas strings while there is still time to act.

   The struggle is ALWAYS to keep govt small so power cant use it to rob the pockets and lives of the many who actually produce. Think of power & govt as as a gang of ticks, who cast off other ticks if their bloodsucking brings host too near death to further support them. They are much smarter and deviant than ticks. When in history was power ever not?

   As a lover of authentic freedom where no one owns any piece of me, nor I a smidge in ALL the rest (socialism) I hope these can be the start of your very own political duopoly Bulls**t Detector.

   The Creature from Jelyll Island a Second Look at the Federal Reserve by Ed Griffin
   http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=F3TAh1gy6rc&feature=related

   < p>Still Don't Believe In The New World Order?
   http://www.svpvril.com/nwo.html

   A CHRONOLOGICAL HISTORY OF THE NEW WORLD ORDER
   http://www.crossroad.to/Excerpts/chronologies/cuddy-nwo.htm

   Wall Street, Banks, and American Foreign Policy
   http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard66.html

   Big Business and the Rise of American Statism
   http://praxeology.net/RC-BRS.htm

   The Great Depression, World War II, and American Prosperity, Part I (video)
   http://mises.org/multimedia/video/Woods/Woods5.wmv

   The Great Depression, World War II, and American Prosperity, Part II (video)
   http://mises.org/multimedia/video/Woods/Woods6.wmv

   Despotism Loves Company: The Story of Roosevelt and Stalin by Soviet defector Yuri Maltsev
   http://mises.org/mp3/Pres/Pres8b.mp3

   The Economics of the New Deal and World War II
   http://mises.org/multimedia/mp3/Woods2/12.mp3

   Roosevelt's WWII Policies of Unconditional Surrender and the Morgenthau Plan
   http://mises.org/mp3/ss03/Denson.mp3

   Six Months that Changed the World
   http://mises.org/multimedia/mp3/bb05/Denson-07-20-2005.mp3

   T he New Deal and the Displacement of the Morgans
   http://mises.org/multimedia/mp3/audiobooks/rothbard/CATF/CATF_22.mp 3

   The New Deal
   http://mises.org/mp3/HofL-2001/Hist21.mp3

   What Is Fascism?
   http://mises.org/multimedia/mp3/audioarticles/2903_Flynn.mp3

   The Great Depression
   http://mises.org/multimedia/mp3/MU2007/22-Garrison.mp3

   The Great Depression
   http://mises.org/mp3/lefevre/132.mp3

   Herbert Hoover and the Great Depression
   http://mises.org/multimedia/mp3/Woods2/11.mp3

   Thank Goodness for FDR's Tax Cut
   http://mises.org/MultiMedia/mp3/tax/Thornton.mp3

   Teddy Roosevelt and the Origins of the Modern Welfare-Warfare State
   http://mises.org/mp3/Pres/Pres9.mp3

   The Truth about the Great Depression (video)
   http://mises.org/multimedia/video/DiLorenzo/9.wmv

   Civil Rights and Statism
   http://mises.org/mp3/HofL-2001/Hist25.mp3

   Bolshevism and Democratic Socialism
   http://mises.org/mp3/HofL-2001/Hist18.mp3

   The Warren Commision: A Rothbardian Analysis
   http://mises.org/mp3/Pres/Pres3b.mp3

   Labor and Unions
   http://mises.org/multimedia/mp3/rothbard/R7-16m.mp3

   Interven tionism (Rent Control, Wage Laws, Unions, Tariffs)
   http://mises.org/multimedia/mp3/MU2004/Block2.mp3

   Labor Unions and the Minimum Wage: A Debate
   http://mises.org/multimedia/block/Block-Blundell-Debate-2007.wmv

   The Marx Nobody Knows
   http://mises.org/multimedia/mp3/marxism/North.mp3

   Marxist and Austrian Class Analysis
   http://mises.org/multimedia/mp3/marxism/Hoppe.mp3

6. anonymous writer Says:
   Mar 26th, 2009 at 9:49am

   In reference to Comment #1:

   The author of Comment #1 wrote (in one of his articles:

   "Be bright, be brief, be gone."

   (What exactly is his point? The truth is certainly obscured...)

7. ggg Says:
   Mar 26th, 2009 at 9:52am

   I guess the ACLU doesnt care about truth NOR FREE SPEECH because you deleted my post?

   What for please?

8. ggg Says:
   Mar 26th, 2009 at 9:54am

   Oops - dere it is. Scratch my last and thank you.

9. Maggie Says:
   Mar 27th, 2009 at 11:52am

   Perhaps we should get on with current business of the government and stop wasting time in the past. I for one do not relish spending the next 4 years listening to this over and over and over again.

10. Vic Livingston Says:
    Mar 27th, 2009 at 3:28pm

    TO: #6 anon writer

    Who would engage in such "Vic-ology?"

    Oh, I get it; it's your JOB.

    But should it be done on the public's dime?

    Aren't there laws against this sort of thing?

11. Hawaiian style Says:
    Mar 28th, 2009 at 5:24am

    How many days of ignoring the evidence does it take before one owns the problem?

    I don't know, but President Obama is working on being a President that does not walk the walk. He said, "No man is above the law." He said, "If there is proof that the law was broken we will prosecute the offender." Well...

    In addition to all the other evidence, is not the last Red Cross report the smoking gun? We authorized and we tortured!

    Unfortunately the way the news cycle works in the US there are so many new events and problems every day that the old, but certainly important subjects get lost.

    This continuous distracting seems to me to be not only dangerous to our nation, but a perfect example of why we should investigate and prosecute whomever breaks the law. It is essential that we as a nation prosecute the torturers and those that authorized it.

    By punishing the criminals, we will ensure that torture does not easily happen again. Whereas if we don't do this just as the news cycle leads our attention in an ever new direction, history and time will do the same.

    If you think I am wrong, remember the internment of the Japanese Americans at the start of WWII? Have we not done the same in Guantanamo? Were we not chagrined after incarcerating all those loyal Japanese Americans? Now having done it again we will be embarrassed all over again once we stop denying the present action as another illegal repetition.

    We need to take definite legal actions against those that authorized and did the torture.

    Unfortunately I don't think it is going to happen. In fact my paranoid mind says the exact same comments made by both Bush and Rice that say, "The President (Obama) deserves our silence". Are in reality a preemptive Conn job. What is really being said is, we won't criticize you President Obama if you don't investigate and prosecute us.

    The more things change the more they stay the same. AUWE, AUWE.

12. Hawaiian style Says:
    Mar 28th, 2009 at 5:28am

    Thank you Jonathan Turley and thank you Rachel Maddow

13. Maggie Says:
    Mar 31st, 2009 at 7:38am

    Let me understand this. You don't want us to torture, imprison, etc. May I ask if we do this, do you think it will stop other countries from doing this to our people? At least we don't cut heads off. Like I said before Give it a Rest.

14. Vic Livingston Says:
    Mar 31st, 2009 at 5:36pm

    What is the difference between cutting heads off and covertly irradiating the heads and bodies of innocent American citizens put on a list by some ideologue as suspected "dissidents," s"undesirable," "mental defectives" or "deviates"?

    Thousands of Americans can attest that this is happening -- torture and slow-kill genocide in America 2009.

    When victims complain of such torture, inflicted by covert hit squads comprised of "community stalkers" (many of them drawn from the ranks public safety agencies) trained and equipped by federal programs, they are written off as "delusional."

    Indeed, that appears to be the purpose of torture inflicted by microwave radiation "directed energy weapons." These neurological weapons degrade their cognitive skills to the point where the persecutors can neutralize them and remove them from society.

    This is a reality, a legacy of the Bush-Cheney reign of terror -- a horror that the Obama administration has yet to acknowledge, let alone address.

    It's been happening to me for five destructive years. Read about it here and wake up before YOU or someone close to you becomes one of the "innocent but targeted":

    http://My.NowPublic.com/scrivener

15. Maggie Says:
    Apr 2nd, 2009 at 9:37am

    I am truly, truly amazed!

16. roald Says:
    Apr 2nd, 2009 at 12:55pm

    We should not stop torturing in order to get other countries to stop also. We should stop torturing and punish the offenders because it is the right thing to do.

17. anon poster Says:
    Apr 2nd, 2009 at 2:15pm

    Some of what Vic Livingston says is absolutely true. While I can't speak to the issue of "directed energy weapons", I do know that people have been singled out for abuse and harassment. The tactics employed are traumatic enough that they will inevitably result in cognitive impairment, if prolonged. It is known that acute "traumatic stress" has a signifant impact on brain structure and function. These abusive practices (crimes?) are most certainly a form of genocide, albeit a slow one. Those who speak up about it are quickly labelled as mentally ill / delusional. When will the ACLU (and/or others) step up to the plate and help the victims of these cruel and sadistic practices?

18. anonymous Says:
    Apr 9th, 2009 at 10:39pm

    Organized Gang Stalking is alive and well in New York.
    Try to mail a leaflet like the one below to the public and see the legal powers that be label the author mentally ill. I, too, can't understand how the ACLU can remain silent about what is happening.

    It Can Happen Here

    The Wikipedia encyclopedia defines a police state as “a state in which the government exercises rigid and, in many peoples’ opinions, repressive controls over the social, economic and political life of the population, especially by means of a secret police force which operates outside the boundries normally imposed by a constitutional republic”. But that could never happen here. I remember reading about Franz Kafka’s novel where Josef K wakes up one morning and finds himself being prosecuted for a crime with which he is never charged. But that can never happen here. From R. D. Laing I learned about double-binds, situations in sick families where things are done that cannot be commented upon, where a psychological conflict is created. But such psychological conflicts could never be engineered by a group of people in an orchestrated attempt to psychologically torture a target, to isolate, to affix the label of crazy should he or she comment on what is happening to them. But things like that could never happen here. We reverence our first responders – the police, our firemen, our ambulance drivers – they help us, they save us, they risk their lives for us. We rightfully support them and put them up on a pedestal. But what if some, or even many, in some of those groups engage in organized stalking of those they deem “ a threat” and follow them around, have one of their members go wherever they go, use their vehicles, their sirens to harass, to unsettle, to try to drive out those they deem undesirable. Maybe, at first, their targets are registered sex offenders. Surely, nobody can fault them for wanting to save their children, the children of their neighbors, from people like that. But then maybe one day one of their members, a particularly good gang stalker, has a problem with someone, someone they would like out of their life – so they go to the “leader” and request that the gang, the double-binds, all the tactics organized stalkers use to harass, to intimidate, to drive out be used on this offending person to one of their members. And now a “civilian” target is created and the full force of gang stalking is thrust upon their head everywhere they go, because the organized stalkers are coordinated across county lines, maybe even across state lines. So that like in a Kafka novel, now a regular citizen is prosecuted by scores of people he or she doesn’t even know for a crime that is never revealed to them. I am here to tell you, it can happen here. This is a wake-up call to find out what is going on before, with the best of intentions, those who claim to love America turn her into a police state.

    STEPS WE NEED TO TAKE
    1. We need to make the person who initiates gang stalking against a target guilty of a hate crime.
    2. We need codes of ethics for all public officials who have knowledge of gang stalking that require they report it with consequences for violations.
    3. We need codes of ethics for all firemen, ambulance drivers, and policemen – including volunteers – that prohibit their engaging in gang stalking or using vehicles and sirens in gang stalking with consequences for violations. To prevent a police state a policeman who gang stalks should be fired.
    4. We need to make anyone who instigates gang stalking across state lines guilty of a federal offense.

    TELL YOUR ELECTED OFFICIALS IT IS TIME TO END GANG STALKING IN NEW YORK STATE.

    Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo
    The Capitol
    Albany, New York 12224-0341
    Telephone: (518) 474-7330 Regional Office: 485-3900

    Find your elected officials at – www.usa.gov/Contact/Elected.shtml

    Private citizens who gang stalk use red cars, red trucks, wear red.

19. anon comment Says:
    Apr 12th, 2009 at 5:22pm

    Re: Comment #18

    It may sound a little "crazy", but it isn't. That how it's designed. These folks (CIA?, NSA? Blackwater/Xe? - God only knows who's behind these crimes) harass and psychologically terrorized good people. For the love of God, would somebody take this madness seriously -- it's unbelievable and that's why it works so well (from the victimizer's standpoint).

    It's torture on American soil and no one is doing anything about it - it's "hidden in plain sight." The ACLU must do something to help get to the bottom of these crimes.

20. anon comment Says:
    Apr 12th, 2009 at 5:23pm

    #19:
    ..."terrorized" should read "terrorize" good people.

21. Anonymous Says:
    Jun 1st, 2009 at 6:37am

    where have all the comments gone? Is it a dead subject. NO!

22. Echo Says:
    Jun 1st, 2009 at 6:40am

    Where have all the comments gone?? Is this a dead subject? How about telling how many TI's live in areas of military or mental hospitals. Nurse Hatch is not dead.

Name

E-mail

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.

Homepage

• Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd>
• Lines and paragraphs break automatically.

More information about formatting options

CAPTCHA

This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.

What code is in the image? *

Enter the characters shown in the image.