A. Friday fun link: Back in the day, after the death of Suck but before the rise of the Poor Man, Modern Humorist was arguably the most consistently funny site on the web. They had a fake preview for Radiohead’s Kid A that’s still on my list.
B. Friday not-so-fun links: Eric Alterman and Paul McLeary’s column on the torture provisions in H.B 10.
Congressman Markey’s amendment (which would have stripped out the torture provisions) did not come up for a vote. An amendment to substitute the Senate version of the bill came up last night. As Katherine notes:
The Senate version of the bill has a stronger national intelligence director with budgetary and personnel authority, strengthens anti-nuclear programs, and generally follows the 9/11 Commission’s recommendations much more closely than the House bill. It does not contain the anti-immigration or torture-outsourcing legalization provisions of the House bill. It passed the Senate by a 96-2 vote. All members of the 9/11 commission support the Senate version, as does the 9/11 Families Steering committee.
This amendment failed on a near party-line vote. Eight Republicans voted for the amendment, 212 against. If I understand correctly, the bill is likely to pass with the torture provisions intact, but there’s still hope for the conference committee. If I’m right, I’ll post the members of the committee as soon as I know them. If I’m wrong about any of this (which I might be), I’ll correct as soon as possible.
It’s times like these when Mickey Kaus’s whizzy “I’m a Democrat who hates Democrats!” act looks a lot less cute.
UPDATE: Katherine notes that the House is still going to vote on the Hostettler amendment, which tones down the language on outsorucing torture without eliminating it. Among other things, it instructs the Department of State to “seek diplomatic assurances” that a suspect not be tortured. This would probably make the deportation of Arar retrospectively legal (ANOTHER UPDATE: maybe not), as Syria assured us that he would not be tortured.
Markey is asking his colleagues to vote no on both the Hostettler amendment and final passage.
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.
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.
The NYT report doesn’t mention the issue at all! Some journal of record.
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.
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.
Fixed.
Both the Hostettler amendment and the final bill passed yesterday.
À Gauche
Jeremy Alder
Amaravati
Anggarrgoon
Audhumlan Conspiracy
H.E. Baber
Philip Blosser
Paul Broderick
Matt Brown
Diana Buccafurni
Brandon Butler
Keith Burgess-Jackson
Certain Doubts
David Chalmers
Noam Chomsky
The Conservative Philosopher
Desert Landscapes
Denis Dutton
David Efird
Karl Elliott
David Estlund
Experimental Philosophy
Fake Barn County
Kai von Fintel
Russell Arben Fox
Garden of Forking Paths
Roger Gathman
Michael Green
Scott Hagaman
Helen Habermann
David Hildebrand
John Holbo
Christopher Grau
Jonathan Ichikawa
Tom Irish
Michelle Jenkins
Adam Kotsko
Barry Lam
Language Hat
Language Log
Christian Lee
Brian Leiter
Stephen Lenhart
Clayton Littlejohn
Roderick T. Long
Joshua Macy
Mad Grad
Jonathan Martin
Matthew McGrattan
Marc Moffett
Geoffrey Nunberg
Orange Philosophy
Philosophy Carnival
Philosophy, et cetera
Philosophy of Art
Douglas Portmore
Philosophy from the 617 (moribund)
Jeremy Pierce
Punishment Theory
Geoff Pynn
Timothy Quigley (moribund?)
Conor Roddy
Sappho's Breathing
Anders Schoubye
Wolfgang Schwartz
Scribo
Michael Sevel
Tom Stoneham (moribund)
Adam Swenson
Peter Suber
Eddie Thomas
Joe Ulatowski
Bruce Umbaugh
What is the name ...
Matt Weiner
Will Wilkinson
Jessica Wilson
Young Hegelian
Richard Zach
Psychology
Donyell Coleman
Deborah Frisch
Milt Rosenberg
Tom Stafford
Law
Ann Althouse
Stephen Bainbridge
Jack Balkin
Douglass A. Berman
Francesca Bignami
BlunkettWatch
Jack Bogdanski
Paul L. Caron
Conglomerate
Jeff Cooper
Disability Law
Displacement of Concepts
Wayne Eastman
Eric Fink
Victor Fleischer (on hiatus)
Peter Friedman
Michael Froomkin
Bernard Hibbitts
Walter Hutchens
InstaPundit
Andis Kaulins
Lawmeme
Edward Lee
Karl-Friedrich Lenz
Larry Lessig
Mirror of Justice
Eric Muller
Nathan Oman
Opinio Juris
John Palfrey
Ken Parish
Punishment Theory
Larry Ribstein
The Right Coast
D. Gordon Smith
Lawrence Solum
Peter Tillers
Transatlantic Assembly
Lawrence Velvel
David Wagner
Kim Weatherall
Yale Constitution Society
Tun Yin
History
Blogenspiel
Timothy Burke
Rebunk
Naomi Chana
Chapati Mystery
Cliopatria
Juan Cole
Cranky Professor
Greg Daly
James Davila
Sherman Dorn
Michael Drout
Frog in a Well
Frogs and Ravens
Early Modern Notes
Evan Garcia
George Mason History bloggers
Ghost in the Machine
Rebecca Goetz
Invisible Adjunct (inactive)
Jason Kuznicki
Konrad Mitchell Lawson
Danny Loss
Liberty and Power
Danny Loss
Ether MacAllum Stewart
Pam Mack
Heather Mathews
James Meadway
Medieval Studies
H.D. Miller
Caleb McDaniel
Marc Mulholland
Received Ideas
Renaissance Weblog
Nathaniel Robinson
Jacob Remes (moribund?)
Christopher Sheil
Red Ted
Time Travelling Is Easy
Brian Ulrich
Shana Worthen
Computers/media/communication
Lauren Andreacchi (moribund)
Eric Behrens
Joseph Bosco
Danah Boyd
David Brake
Collin Brooke
Maximilian Dornseif (moribund)
Jeff Erickson
Ed Felten
Lance Fortnow
Louise Ferguson
Anne Galloway
Jason Gallo
Josh Greenberg
Alex Halavais
Sariel Har-Peled
Tracy Kennedy
Tim Lambert
Liz Lawley
Michael O'Foghlu
Jose Luis Orihuela (moribund)
Alex Pang
Sebastian Paquet
Fernando Pereira
Pink Bunny of Battle
Ranting Professors
Jay Rosen
Ken Rufo
Douglas Rushkoff
Vika Safrin
Rob Schaap (Blogorrhoea)
Frank Schaap
Robert A. Stewart
Suresh Venkatasubramanian
Ray Trygstad
Jill Walker
Phil Windley
Siva Vaidahyanathan
Anthropology
Kerim Friedman
Alex Golub
Martijn de Koning
Nicholas Packwood
Geography
Stentor Danielson
Benjamin Heumann
Scott Whitlock
Education
Edward Bilodeau
Jenny D.
Richard Kahn
Progressive Teachers
Kelvin Thompson (defunct?)
Mark Byron
Business administration
Michael Watkins (moribund)
Literature, language, culture
Mike Arnzen
Brandon Barr
Michael Berube
The Blogora
Colin Brayton
John Bruce
Miriam Burstein
Chris Cagle
Jean Chu
Hans Coppens
Tyler Curtain
Cultural Revolution
Terry Dean
Joseph Duemer
Flaschenpost
Kathleen Fitzpatrick
Jonathan Goodwin
Rachael Groner
Alison Hale
Household Opera
Dennis Jerz
Jason Jones
Miriam Jones
Matthew Kirschenbaum
Steven Krause
Lilliputian Lilith
Catherine Liu
John Lovas
Gerald Lucas
Making Contact
Barry Mauer
Erin O'Connor
Print Culture
Clancy Ratcliff
Matthias Rip
A.G. Rud
Amardeep Singh
Steve Shaviro
Thanks ... Zombie
Vera Tobin
Chuck Tryon
University Diaries
Classics
Michael Hendry
David Meadows
Religion
AKM Adam
Ryan Overbey
Telford Work (moribund)
Library Science
Norma Bruce
Music
Kyle Gann
ionarts
Tim Rutherford-Johnson
Greg Sandow
Scott Spiegelberg
Biology/Medicine
Pradeep Atluri
Bloviator
Anthony Cox
Susan Ferrari (moribund)
Amy Greenwood
La Di Da
John M. Lynch
Charles Murtaugh (moribund)
Paul Z. Myers
Respectful of Otters
Josh Rosenau
Universal Acid
Amity Wilczek (moribund)
Theodore Wong (moribund)
Physics/Applied Physics
Trish Amuntrud
Sean Carroll
Jacques Distler
Stephen Hsu
Irascible Professor
Andrew Jaffe
Michael Nielsen
Chad Orzel
String Coffee Table
Math/Statistics
Dead Parrots
Andrew Gelman
Christopher Genovese
Moment, Linger on
Jason Rosenhouse
Vlorbik
Peter Woit
Complex Systems
Petter Holme
Luis Rocha
Cosma Shalizi
Bill Tozier
Chemistry
"Keneth Miles"
Engineering
Zack Amjal
Chris Hall
University Administration
Frank Admissions (moribund?)
Architecture/Urban development
City Comforts (urban planning)
Unfolio
Panchromatica
Earth Sciences
Our Take
Who Knows?
Bitch Ph.D.
Just Tenured
Playing School
Professor Goose
This Academic Life
Other sources of information
Arts and Letters Daily
Boston Review
Imprints
Political Theory Daily Review
Science and Technology Daily Review