Yesterday, we thought that the Obama Administration, after two delays, was finally going to release a CIA memo revealing the breadth and knowing criminality of U.S. government torture under George W. Bush. Obama didn’t release the memo.

This morning, we thought that Obama’s delay in releasing the memo would be just three or four days, until the end of the 4th of July weekend.

This evening, we’re finding out that Barack Obama is using the occasion of the anniversary of America’s struggle for liberty to announce that he will keep secrets about torture from the American people from another two months, at which time, of course, he may just announce another delay.

The government has held this memo for years already. What on earth does Barack Obama need another two months for to decide whether to release the memo? How hard is it for Obama to choose whether to tell us the truth? How long does Obama need to figure out whether to keep his promises of a government of openness, accountability, and respect for constitutional rights?

In March of 2008, Adam Davidson of NPR revealed the massive increase in “Suspicious Activity Reports” to monitor the purchasing and financial transactions of you and prominent “politically exposed persons,” without a warrant, to uncover evidence of precrime. Here’s Davidson’s description of how Suspicious Activity Reports work in the age of Homeland Security:

Banks monitor every transaction. Every one, no matter how small…. “Your transaction is being transferred to the bank and it will be loaded into our transaction monitoring system and we will actually add this transaction together with several other types of transaction that you’ve done recently.” The software is checking to see if maybe that $4 is part of a pattern…. The report goes to a bank’s compliance officer, listing all recent suspicious transactions. Every transaction is given a numerical score…. The computer makes the score based on who is making the transaction, where does he come from, who is he associated with, what else is he up to. Every bank customer has, somewhere, in some computer database, a risk assessment score…. It also checks a bunch of lists. Are you on a terror watch list? A list of criminals?… A PEP — banks really do use that term — is anybody with political power. That means a Nigerian General, a U.S. Senator, or say the Governor of New York. And any PEP — any Politically Exposed Person — is monitored more carefully…. The Patriot Act forced banks to more closely monitor suspicious activity.

Remember Eliot Spitzer, Governor of New York? He was brought down politically after — without any evidence, without a warrant — his extramural, extramarital activity was brought to light through government collection and analysis of, yes, Suspicious Activity Reports.

Since then, I’ve been tracking the Department of Treasury’s twice-annual reports of these Suspicious Activity Reports (also known as SARs). The SAR Activity Review By The Numbers report has been issued twice a year — once in the fall and once in May or June — since 2003, with trend information extending back to 1996. Here’s a representation of the available data as of the release of the last By The Numbers report in November 2008 during the waning days of the Bush administration:

You can see why the trends are important to follow; since the passage of the Patriot Act the volume of Suspicious Activity Reports filed with the government has ballooned. Notice the asterisk for 2008 — the November 2008 report, of course, could not include all data for 2008, but only data on reports up through June 2008. The figure for 2008 was a preliminary extrapolation. To get full data on the volume of SARs for 2008, we’d have to wait for the regular By The Numbers report, scheduled to be released in May or June of 2009.

May and June of 2009 have passed, and as you can see here (as of today, July 2) there is no new report available.

Candidate Barack Obama ran for president on the pledge that his administration would champion transparency in government. When federal snooping on the financial activity of everyday Joes and “Politically Exposed Persons” goes undisclosed, that does not strike me as “transparent.”

Did I mention that at the end of this year, a number of provisions of the Patriot Act will expire unless they are renewed by Congress? Continued public disclosure of Suspicious Activity Report trends would complicate this renewal. When information about Patriot Act surveillance is swept quietly under the carpet, renewal of the Patriot Act’s provisions is made that much simpler.

You may remember that I wrote yesterday morning that the big news of the day about torture would be the release of a CIA memo written during the Bush Administration, revealing the scope of planned torture under George W. Bush. The Obama Administration had promised to release the memo requested by the ACLU yesterday, after all, and with Barack Obama a promise is a… suggestion that may be later completely reversed.

The CIA memo was not released. The Obama Administration asked for a three day extension, and then suggested that maybe the memo wouldn’t be released until next week, when of course, Obama may change his mind again.

Apparently, there’s some uncertainty within the Obama Administration about whether to follow President Obama’s pledge to have a government of unprecedented openness, or to keep most of the memo secret, just as George W. Bush did. Obama is delaying while he decides how much information about government torture he will continue to conceal. Supporters of Barack Obama ought to be asking themselves why Mr. Yes We Can can’t muster the willpower to finally allow the American public to learn the whole truth about U.S. government torture.

If we aren’t even given full information about what went on with torture under Bush, how can we know that torture has actually stopped under Obama? Given Obama’s efforts to keep military interrogations undocumented, and his opposition to justice for those who have been tortured, I don’t see how he deserves the benefit of the doubt.

Really. Which is worse: that Maine Republican candidate for Governor Les Otten has pretty obviously copied President Barack Obama’s website theme…

… or that President Barack Obama has pretty obviously copied from the Republican Party platform on warrantless surveillance, state secrets, torture, the imbalance of power and anti-gay discrimination?

Expect the big civil liberties news of the day to be the release of a memo from the CIA related to torture. That’s all well and good, but that memo is about what happened during the Bush Administration, in the past, and President Obama and the Democratic leadership in Congress have made it clear that they’re not going to allow any efforts to hold anyone accountable for torture that took place in the past.

Given that inaction, I think that we need to take extra care to hold Barack Obama and the congressional Democrats accountable for their actions on torture in the present. Yesterday, I focused on a particular aspect of congressional accountability for torture when it came to an amendment to the Defense Appropriations bill passed last week. The amendment was offered by Democrat Rush Holt, yet 31 Democrats voted against it.

That amendment was something you’re not going to read about in the news today. No journalists are reporting on it, but it gives an extremely important insight into the difference between what the Obama Administration says it’s going to do, and what it actually intends to do. The Obama Administration says it’s going to end torture, and restore open government, but it’s actually moved to protect illegal government secrecy in order to cover up torture. The Obama Administration continues that pattern with its position on the Holt amendment.

The Holt amendment passed last week has to do with interrogations. It would require the military to videotape all interrogations, except for tactical interrogations on the battlefield where videotaping is impractical. The measure was actually recommended by a military task force that was assembled by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates at the end of the Bush Administration. In a document called The Walsh Report, the task force recommended that all military interrogations be videotaped in order to prevent torture and other forms of abuse and coercion, in order to protect military interrogation teams from false accusations of torture, abuse and coercion, and in order to provide better military intelligence.

Given the military’s own recommendation in the Walsh Report, and the way that videotaping protections soldiers and prisoners alike, it seems that voting for the Holt amendment would be an obvious decision. Yet, 31 Democrats and 162 Republicans voted against it. Why?

During the debate over the amendment last week, Republican Representative Howard McKeon offered a surprising reason for opposing the measure: The Obama Administration opposes it. McKeon presented the following statement from Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, explaining why the Obama White House asked for the videotaping requirement to be defeated:

“The Department of Defense strongly opposes the provision because it would severely restrict the collection of intelligence through interrogations, undercut the Department’s ability to recruit sources, and impose an unreasonable administrative and logistical burden on the warfighter.”

It’s a bit bizarre, but Robert Gates is now arguing against the opinion of the panel of experts that he himself assembled, and the Obama Administration is giving political support to efforts by Republicans and right wing Democrats in Congress to block the prevention of torture.

The justifications for this reversal offered by Gates don’t make sense. There’s no logistical burden on the “warfighter” (is that a word?). The Holt amendment specifically provides an exception for tactical interrogations that take place on the battlefield, where videotaping may not be practical. The videotaping provision shouldn’t harm the military’s ability to recruit sources either, as there’s no requirement in the amendment that voluntary sources be told that they will be videotaped.

The protest from Gates that I am most bothered by is his claim that videotaping interrogations will “severely restrict the collection of intelligence through interrogations”. First of all, the Walsh Report makes it clear that the videotaping would actually make interrogations more successful, providing a better quality of intelligence than would otherwise be available. Secondly, it doesn’t make sense to claim that the videotaping of an interrogation would interfere with the collection of intelligence at all, much less “severely restrict” it, unless the military intends to use interrogation techniques, such as torture, that are illegal.

There’s reason for us to worry about such a possibility, given Barack Obama’s sudden insistence this spring that he must not release photographic and video evidence of torture. The Obama Administration’s move to oppose the videotaping of interrogations is yet another instance of Obama’s overall effort to preserve the government secrecy that made widespread violations of the Constitution and international law possible. The Obama White House appears to be concerned not just with keeping the torture of the past a secret, but with preserving a shroud over interrogations in the present, making torture and abuse likely to continue.

You read that right. Over the weekend five people were arrested on charges related to the practice and coverup of U.S. government torture, and three of those people were jailed.

What did these five people do? They stood on the sidewalk outside the White House protesting the practice and coverup of torture by the U.S. government, and for that they were arrested on June 28. Three were sent to jail.

In the meantime, no one actually involved in the government conspiracy to commit torture has been jailed or even charged with a crime.

A new report from That’s My Congress reveals that of the 79 members of the LGBT Equality Caucus in the House of Representatives, less than half support two-thirds or more of the caucus’ slate of 12 pro-LGBT bills.

The LGBT Equality Caucus describes its work in the Congress as “the extension of equal rights, the repeal of discriminatory laws, the elimination of hate-motivated violence, and the improved health and well being for all regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity/expression.” 79 Representatives have indicated their symbolic support for these ideals by signing up as caucus members, but support beyond symbolism for laws that would actually make those changes is highly variable.

The following are, nominally speaking, members of the LGBT Equality Caucus. But in practice, they haven’t taken the effort to support any more than a quarter of the LGBT policy slate this year. These are the weakest members of the caucus:

Rep. Xavier Becerra of California supports just 3 out of 12 pro-LGBT bills. Bills to which Rep. Becerra has failed to lend his support: H.R. 1616, H.R. 1913, H.R. 2262, H.R. 2625, H.R. 2709, H.R. 3017, H.Con.Res. 92, H.Res. 308, and H.Res. 433

Rep. Niki Tsongas of Massachusetts supports just 3 out of 12 pro-LGBT bills. Bills that Rep. Tsongas has not lent support to: H.R. 1616, H.R. 1913, H.R. 2262, H.R. 2517, H.R. 2625, H.R. 2709, H.Con.Res. 92, H.Res. 308 and H.Res. 433

Rep. Edolphus “Ed” Towns of New York supports just 3 out of 12 pro-LGBT bills. Bills to which Rep. Towns has failed to lend his support: H.R. 1913, H.R. 2262, H.R. 2517, H.R. 2625, H.R. 2709, H.R. 3017, H.Con.Res. 92, H.Res. 308, and H.Res. 433

Rep. Patrick Murphy of Pennsylvania supports just 3 out of 12 pro-LGBT bills. Bills that Rep. Murphy has not lent support to: H.R. 1024, H.R. 1616, H.R. 2262, H.R. 2517, H.R. 2625, H.R. 2709, H.Con.Res. 92, H.Res. 308, and H.Res. 433

Rep. Ellen Tauscher of California supports just 2 out of 12 pro-LGBT bills. Bills to which Rep. Tauscher has failed to lend support: H.R. 1616, H.R. 1913, H.R. 2262, H.R. 2517, H.R. 2625, H.R. 2709, H.R. 3017, H.Con.Res. 92, H.Res. 308, and H.Res. 433

Ellen Tauscher has some excuse for her meager legislative performance; knowing that she was to be appointed as Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security (a post she’ll be taking up next week), perhaps she has focused more on her future job than the one she was actually elected to. But what are these other four members of Congress thinking? Why did they even bother to sign up as members of the LGBT Equality Caucus in the first place? Did they think that nobody would notice their actual performance?

If you find that your representative is on this list of underperforming members of the LGBT Equality Caucus, then review the caucus’ slate of legislation for yourself. Find the bills you think are especially important (this is essential; we’ve found we don’t agree with all of the bills ourselves). Then click on your representative’s name to get his or her contact information and make a call to advocate for a little more consistency in Washington, DC.

The news has emerged that President Barack Obama is considering an executive order to impose a system of indefinite detention without trial in the United States of America. The New York Times interviewed Obama administration officials to uncover the reasons why:

At the heart of the issue are more than 200 men being held at Guantánamo, in some cases for years. Initially, the administration had hoped that most could either be sent back to their home countries or tried in criminal courts in the United States. But emptying the prison has proved politically difficult.

Officials acknowledge that they have had trouble persuading other countries to accept detainees, and it now appears that some detainees — as many as several dozen — are unlikely candidates for criminal trials because of legal issues, including having evidence against them that was obtained by coerced interrogations.

Legislation remains an option, officials said, but the possibility of an executive order, which would bypass Congress, seems to indicate that the administration fears it may be unable to reach an agreement with lawmakers on a new detention system to replace Guantánamo.

Got that? Let’s rephrase: the Obama White House wants to issue an executive order to detain people because it doesn’t believe a judicial trial would convict the people it wants imprisoned and it doesn’t believe that the sort of legislative bill it wants would pass Congress.

Remember your high school American civics class and the lesson on the checks and balances of power distributed between three coequal branches of government? When Barack Obama was a candidate a year ago, he told us he remembered that lesson, too. He told us that change doesn’t come from the top down, but from the bottom up. He told us that he had read the Constitution and taught the Constitution and believed in the Constitution. He told us he’d restore judicial review to detainees and the right to a fair trial. He told us he’d restore human rights and civil rights for individuals. He told us he’d restore due process and rule of law, not rule by edict.

Now that he’s President, and he doesn’t think he’ll get the outcome he wants on individual cases from the legislative and judicial branches, he’s decided he’s going to overrule judicial power, to overrule Congress’ power of legislation, to overrule the Constitution itself. Rather than deal with the pesky separation of powers, Barack Obama will issue his personal edict that in America, there is no more right to a speedy, public trial by impartial jury. Under Barack Obama’s presidential declaration, Barack Obama will be judge, Barack Obama will be jury, and Barack Obama will be jailer. There are names for a person who feels desperately that unless he controls every aspect of a situation, it will all turn out wrong. “Micromanager” is a polite one. “Control freak” is more blunt. “Tyrant” is usually the one we use in politics.

Does this remind you of anyone? Does it remind you of George W. Bush? Does it remind you of Dick Cheney? It should. The Obama administration has adopted the kingly aspirations of the Bush administration. History tells us that it’s a bad idea to let control freaks and tyrants grab the crown, or to fashion a crown for themselves when none exists.

I expect some of you are thinking right now that this really isn’t such a big deal, that it can’t be such a big deal, because Barack Obama seems like such a nice fellow. Besides, you might be thinking, President Obama is just doing what he has to do to clean up after the messes of the Bush administration, to deal with the aftermath of leftover detainees. He’ll resolve the issue of the Guantanamo detainees, you’re thinking, and then we can move forward without looking backward to the dawn of a new bright and shiny day where we all hold hands on the hillside and teach the world to sing in perfect harmony and buy the world a Coke and keep it company…

… well, hold on there, Sheila. Read what the Washington Post reports, after speaking to Obama administration officials, about the plans for this executive order:

Such detainees — those at Guantanamo and those who may be captured in the future — would also have the right to legal representation during confinement and access to some of the information that is being used to keep them behind bars…. One administration official said future transfers to the United States for long-term detention would be rare.

Did you notice the word “future” there? Funny word, “future”: it usually refers to what somebody’s planning to do next.

In these days of frequent, positive depictions of homosexuality in popular media, it might seem that the USA is moving beyond discrimination against gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transexuals. Yet, it’s still legal for people to be fired from their jobs for no other reason than that they aren’t heterosexual. Media depictions don’t create equality. Legislation does.

Two days ago, legislation was introduced into the House of Representatives that would end job discrimination based upon sexual orientation. It’s H.R. 3017, and it has 117 cosponsors, in addition to its author, Barney Frank.

In these days of economic recession, with unemployment figures at new highs, it’s outrageous that capable American workers can be thrown out of their jobs just because of the way that they prefer to get sexual pleasure in their private time. Make sure that your U.S. Representative is on the list of cosponsors. I’ve uploaded a quick page of cosponsors - because the bill is so new that there is not yet a permanent link to the list of cosponsors at the Library of Congress. Check the list, and if your representative is not there, make a telephone call asking why - (202) 224-3121.

Mother Davis searches her medicine cabinet after considering,

The Fourth Amendment in the Bill of Rights sets a subjective standard for protection against government searches. It only defends us against “unreasonable search and seizure”. Unfortunately, there are some people in power whose subjective lens has been knocked off balance.

Among those is Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. He was the sole dissenting voice in a ruling yesterday concerning a school administration’s strip search of 13 year-old girl.

Thomas’s position was that the strip search should be considered reasonable. The search was for ibuprofen.

Wondering if perhaps she has hidden her aspirin under her clothes,
Mother Davis

“The bottom line is that he lied under a different oath -the oath to his wife.” — Republican Congressman Marshall Clement “Mark” Sanford on politics and the sanctity of marriage, 1998

Question: “Should South Carolina restrict marriage to a union only between a man and a woman?” Answer: “Yes” — Republican Gubernatorial Candidate Mark Sanford, 2002 Vote Smart Political Courage Test

Question: “Should South Carolina recognize civil unions between same-sex couples?” Answer: “No” — Republican Gubernatorial Candidate Mark Sanford, 2002 Vote Smart Political Courage Test

Question: “Indicate which principles you support (if any) regarding education… Support age-appropriate sexual education programs that teach about abstinence, contraceptives and HIV/STD prevention methods?” Answer: “No” — Republican Gubernatorial Candidate Mark Sanford, 2002 Vote Smart Political Courage Test

“Yes” — 1996 Vote on H.R. 3396, the “Defense of Marriage Act”, “to define and protect the institution of marriage” and to mandate that “the word ‘marriage’ means only a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife.”

“Yes” — 1999 Vote on H.R. 2587, a bill banning adoptions by same-sex couples.

“As Jenny and I are the parents of four little boys, we’ve always taught our kids that marriage was something between a man and a woman. As governor, I am supportive of legislation that furthers that definition here in South Carolina.” — Republican Governor Mark Sanford to the Post and Courier, February 2004

“He’s always felt marriage is between a man and a woman.” — Spokesman for Republican Governor Mark Sanford, April 2005

Question: “Do you think the Republican party should become more libertarian on the issue of gay marriage?” Answer: “No, I don’t.” — Republican Governor Mark Sanford, June 12 2009

“I could digress and say that you have the ability to give magnificent gentle kisses, or that I love your tan lines or that I love the curve of your hips, the erotic beauty of you holding yourself (or two magnificent parts of yourself) in the faded glow of the night’s light - but hey, that would be going into sexual details…” — Republican Governor Mark Sanford, July 2008, in an e-mail to his mistress

Torture is a moral issue, and the issue is not past. Despite revelations that American torture practices lasted seven years, that medical doctors participated in the torture, that it involved drowning one man 183 times, and that the major purpose of all this torture was to generate fabricated “evidence” to support an invasion of Iraq, despite all this, American government under President Barack Obama is not trying to uncover American torture practices. On the contrary, the Obama administration is engaged in vigorous efforts to cover it all up. Torture investigations? Off the table. Binyam Mohamed torture report? Quashed. Abu Ghraib torture photos? Stifled. CIA torture photos, and tapes, and transcripts? Hidden. State secrets powers for the President? Vigorously pursued. It’s not just the Obama administration, either. Congress is also acting to hide evidence of US government torture from you, to stall or stop any congressional investigations and to make legislative reform more difficult.

This is why activism on the issue of American torture by Americans is essential even though George W. Bush is out of office. This week, rallies, marches and other protect actions against torture are taking place across the country. Here’s a list of the actions I’m aware of; post a comment if you know of others.

Thursday, June 25

San Francisco, CA
Pasadena, CA
Tampa Bay, FL
Washington, D.C. March to the DOJ
Boston, MA at Harvard Square
Portland, OR
Bryn Mawr, PA
Salt Lake City, UT

Friday, June 26

San Jose, CA
Atlanta, GA

Saturday, June 27

Washington, DC: 24 Hours in front of the White House

On the subject of government spying, it seems that when we take a step forward, we take another step back. The National Applications Office, and its program of military satellite spying against Americans, is reported to be on the verge of a shutdown. On the other hand electronic surveillance, as enabled through the Patriot Act and FISA Amendments Act, may be taking a big step forward.

I take note of an earmark inserted into a military appropriations bill. The earmark declaration, by its author, U.S. Representative Rob Bishop, reads as follows:

* Project Title: Optimizing Natural Language Processing of Open Source Intelligence (OSINT)

* Amount: $1.5 million

* Requesting Member: ROB BISHOP (UT)

* Bill Number: H.R. 2647

* Account: Research and Development, Army

* Address of Requesting Entity: Attensity, Inc., 90 South 400 West, Suite 600, Salt Lake City, Utah 84101

* Matching Funds: None

* Detailed Spending Plan: Not applicable

* Description and Justification of Funding: Project, in conjunction with the University of New York at Buffalo, would fund research and development of an “all-source” fusion tool for collecting open-source data from the web, blogs, social networking sites, and RRS feeds, to provide more effective defense intelligence analysis and improving military decision making in asymmetric warfare situations.

This project, for the military, would create a tool capable of collecting information from a variety of sources on the Internet for the purpose of “defense intelligence analysis”. I can’t say for sure exactly how that would work, of course, given that the tool hasn’t been developed yet. I can’t even say that how the money would be spent, as Representative Bishop seems to think that there’s no need for any detailed spending plan when it comes to military projects of this sort.

What this earmark demonstrates is that the military intends to scan web sites as part of its spying operations. Maybe the system will be set to scan only web sites created and maintained outside of the United States, but I doubt it. For one thing, the way that the Internet works doesn’t make things that simple. For another thing, the military has already been caught engaging in electronic and direct human surveillance of peaceful, law-abiding organizations here in the United States. Go back to 2002, and you may remember the military’s Total Information Awareness project, which sought to gather information from multiple sources, including the Internet, in order to track Americans and try to predict criminal behavior before it took place.

Given its history of spying on the American people, I don’t think that the military deserves the benefit of the doubt on this project. Nor does it deserve funding for the OSINT project.

Abd Al Rahim Abdul Rassak had been conscripted into Al Quaeda, and had worked for three weeks cleaning weapons for them, and briefly attended a terrorist training camp. But then, for some reason, Al Quaeda came to believe that he was a spy. So, they imprisoned him, and tortured him for a year and a half, before casting him out.

Abd Al Rahim Abdul Rassak was through with Al Quaeda, so he got in contact with the American government offering to provide information about the Al Quaeda’s activities. In response, the American government threw him into Guantanamo, accused him of being a suicide bomber, and called him one of the “worst of the worst”. For years, they refused to give him any opportunity to challenge the validity his imprisonment.

Finally, yesterday, US District Court Judge Richard Leon took a look at the case, and ordered him released immediately. The government argument that Abd Al Rahim Abdul Rassak is a threat to the United States “defies common sense”, said Judge Leon.

Now, you complete the sentence: Justice delayed is…