Comments on: You take the good, you take the bad

By: Katherine

Katherine — Sat, 09 Oct 2004 15:23:44 +0000

Both the Hostettler amendment and the final bill passed yesterday.

By: Ted Barlow

Ted Barlow — Fri, 08 Oct 2004 22:55:16 +0000

Fixed.

By: Walt Pohl

Walt Pohl — Fri, 08 Oct 2004 22:36:38 +0000

Since the torture bill makes me need humor more than ever, I tried the link to Modern Humanist, but tragically, it is broken. Like my spirit.

By: Katherine

Katherine — Fri, 08 Oct 2004 22:03:24 +0000

Sorry, I misspoke; I don’t know if it retroactively legalizes Arar’s deportation. (It easily could, I just don’t know.) I meant what happened to Arar would probably be okay in the future. I may try to call the Center for Constitutional Rights and get their analysis of it. As for the NY Times, for the paper of record, they’ve broken fewer important news stories than the Washington Post or the Wall Street Journal.

By: John Quiggin

John Quiggin — Fri, 08 Oct 2004 21:46:19 +0000

The NYT report doesn’t mention the issue at all! Some journal of record.

By: Katherine

Katherine — Fri, 08 Oct 2004 21:10:16 +0000

Not quite. They’re still voting another amendment, known as the “Hostettler amendment”. It makes section 3032 less “Look world we’re in blatant breach of the torture convention nyah nyah nyah!” It authorizes indefinite detention at the Homeland Security Secretary’s discretion—which might well be unconstitutional—and instructs the Department of State to “seek diplomatic assurances” that a suspect not be tortured. It does not say what the legal effect of those assurances would be, but it implies that Congress considers them to be sufficient. My guess is that the Department of Homeland Security might then issue regulations saying that such assurances are enough to keep us from violating the Convention Against Tortuer. Since the statute is ambiguous, and agencies are allowed to interpret ambiguous statutes, a court would probably accept it. Which would mean that Arar’s deportation was legal—we got such assurances from Syria. Sweden got those assurances from Egypt aboiut Agiza and al Zery. In both cases, there were credible allegations after the fact that a suspect was being tortured; they were just ignored. Assurances are worthless when not accompanied by verification. If I’m right about this, in legal effect it’s not much of a change. And it’s more likely than the original 3032 to be in the version after conference, since I’m sure the WHite House supports it. Section 3033 is intact. Markey is asking his colleagues to vote no on both the Hostettler amendment and final passage. The House doesn’t seem to be in session today.

By: djw

djw — Fri, 08 Oct 2004 21:07:35 +0000

What do GOP House leaders think they’re doing here? No support from the president, the Senate….do they think this is an electoral winner? Good lord, this is nuts. I won’t put much stock in this until we see the conference committee, but my hunch is that the Senators will have none of this. But they should certainly be pushed and encouraged in that direction.