Judge Rules CIA Can Withhold Info about Illegal Methods

[kpete]

Source: AllGov News

Judge Rules CIA Can Withhold Info about Illegal Methods
Monday, July 26, 2010


A federal judge has backed CIA efforts to conceal information about treatment of detainees, even if the suppressed records contain details about illegal activity on the part of the intelligence agency.

U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein ruled that he was unwilling to “second-guess the CIA Director regarding the appropriateness of any particular intelligence source or method,” while rejecting the American Civil Liberties Union’s request to obtain records related to the treatment of detainees, those who died in U.S. custody and the names of anyone kidnapped and sent to secret prisons.

ACLU Deputy Legal Director Jameel Jaffer said his organization was “dismayed” by Hellerstein’s decision, which could be construed as giving the CIA “a license to suppress evidence of criminal activity.”

Read more: http://www.allgov.com/Top_Stories/ViewNews/Judge_Rules_CIA_Can_Withhold_Info_about_Illegal_Methods_100726

[Solly Mack]

1. k/r

[klook]

2. What is the constitutional basis for this decision?

If there is any justice (and we know that is a fluctuating condition), this will be overturned.

[Pavulon]

4. Executive Branch operates independently of the Judicial branch.(nt)

[Cleobulus]

11. Uhm, checks and balances? I think I remember that from civics class. n/t

[Pavulon]

19. Impeach. Executive balance.

or you can defund, you do not get to see or review the day to day operations of the CIA Operations branch. Nor do you see the executive branch in the same manner. Church was the high point and still sets the boundaries.

[ttwiddler]

23. The basis

National security issues are generally avoided by the federal courts. They're considered political questions, which should be resolved by the political branches.

[Pavulon]

3. Executive Branch Retains Authority.

remember look at all things in 100 year context and you will find simplicity in their methods. The CIA does not operate in the US. And therefore is not subject to judicial branch's authority. Church withstanding it fits the general 6th grade civics view of the system.

[klook]

5. Last time I checked, Exec didn't operate as a monarchy. (Bush/Cheney notwithstanding)

I see your point, but there should still be oversight by the legislative and judicial branches.

I think I recall something about a system of "checks and balances" in 6th grade civics class.

[Pavulon]

6. Church covered that.

if they aren't covered by the US constitution it has no business in US courts.

[JDPriestly]

8. The people who make the decisions on CIA policy do operate in the US.

The judge is a district judge. The ACLU will appeal this. On appeal, there is a good chance that the decision may be different.

Of course, people in CIA custody may not have the same constitutional rights as US residents/citizens, but the CIA is an American institution and may not just do what it wants.

[Pavulon]

15. The CIA can and does carry out ex-judicial killing of non us citizens

authorized by the administrative branch. It should not be killing or torturing people in custody, but it does not treat them like they were shoplifting at walmart.

[Cleobulus]

12. Actually yes it is if it violates international treaties that the United States is a signatory of.

[sandnsea]

13. What?

Can you give me some kind of legal authority for that statement, the CIA is not subject to judicial branch's authority. I don't think that's anywhere near right.

The judge may be right, but I would hope he would have a better legal basis than "I don't want to second guess the CIA". It's his job to second guess, that's why he's called a judge.

[Pavulon]

16. War powers act.

Executive branch has wide authority in this space. It goes beyond politicians you may or may not like. One of those framework questions.

[sandnsea]

21. I'll read the specifics of the case

I wouldn't think the War Powers Act would give the CIA blanket freedom to do anything they wanted on foreign soil, just because they're on foreign soil. That's what you seemed to say, correct me if I misunderstand.

[Pavulon]

26. Not anything, but they have a very wide berth.

say targeted killings that balance the value of the enemy against those around him who die in the attack.

[unkachuck]

7. so....

....the CIA, a creation of Congress and the American people, can commit illegal acts and crimes and is not obligated to share that infomation....what kind of uber fascist institution is the CIA?

"...unwilling to “second-guess the CIA Director..."

....absolutely not, I understand completely....no need to burden the Reichsmarschall with any unnecessary questions....

[Pavulon]

17. The CIA and MI6 have broad

powers outside the nations that are not subject to public scrutiny.

The CIA kills people on authority of the executive branch. It has done this for years.

The church commission reset the ground rules. But the CIA is not a transparent agency and by definition never will be.

[JDPriestly]

9. Alvin Hellerstein -- what a nice guy. A Clinton appointee. (Yes!)

Here is what he said to the 9/11 survivors who apparently wanted, among other things, a cemetery in which to place potential remains of their loved ones.

Alvin Hellerstein, on July 7, 2008 ruled that "the city is not required to re-sift through debris from ground zero in search of bits of human remains and remove it to a space where a cemetery might be built (thereby leaving the material from ground zero at Fresh Kills landfills). Plaintiffs have no property right in an undifferentiated, unidentifiable mass of dirt that may or may not contain the remains of plaintiffs' loved ones. Not every wrong can be addressed through the judicial process." Hellerstein urged the city to build a memorial and nature reserve at the site.<2> Victims' families' counsel Norman Siegel criticized the ruling: "We are not prepared to leave hundreds of human remains of 9/11 victims on top of a garbage dump as their final resting place."<3>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alvin_Hellerstein

Read more. Not many judges with his level of humanism on the bench. And to think he is there for life. Ugggg

[Ignis]

22. What a sterling example of humanity.

:puke:

[defendandprotect]

10. We need to impeach judges who think this way . . .

CIA should have been torn to pieces and blown away on the wind decades ago --

CIA = violence and corruption --

[Ichingcarpenter]

14. The CIA is a government of its own

No wonder Kennedy and Eisenhower wanted to break it up.

Look how many CIA guys were in on the Watergate never mind everything else some of us know about.

Try to find the Budget of the CIA......... You can't.

[Pavulon]

18. Every administration uses it, kennedy had it kill diem

dead as a door nail. Every administration has had a hand in its work. The cia is by definition (like parts of the executive branch which controls much of it) not subject to public review.

[Ichingcarpenter]

20. Kennedy had planned that Diem would be safely exiled and Arthur Schlesinger recalled

Kennedy learned of the deaths on the following morning when National Security Council staffer Michael Forrestal rushed into the cabinet room with a telegram reporting the Ngo brothers' suicides. According to General Maxwell Taylor, "Kennedy leaped to his feet and rushed from the room with a look of shock and dismay on his face which I had never seen before."


Kennedy had planned that Diem would be safely exiled and Arthur Schlesinger recalled that the U.S. president was "somber and shaken".<20>


Kennedy later penned a memo, lamenting that the assassination was "particularly abhorrent" and blaming himself for approving Cable 243,<20> which authorised Lodge to explore coup options in the wake of Nhu's attacks on the Buddhist pagodas.<20> Forrestal said that “It shook him personally...bothered him as a moral and religious matter. It shook his confidence, I think, in the kind of advice he was getting about South Vietnam.”<21>

When Kennedy was consoled by a friend who told him he need not feel sorry for the Ngo brothers on the grounds of despotism, Kennedy replied “No. They were in a difficult position. They did the best they could for their country.”<21>


Kennedy's reaction did not draw sympathy from his entire administration. Some believed that he should not have supported the coup and that as coups were uncontrollable, assassination was always a possibility. Kennedy was sceptical about the story and suspected that a double assassination had taken place.

He reasoned that the Catholic Ngo brothers would not take their own lives, but Hilsman rationalised the possibility of suicide by asserting that Diem and Nhu would have interpreted the coup as Armageddon.<22>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrest_and_assassination_of_Ngo_Dinh_Diem


Now you love the CIA and tell false stories.

[Pavulon]

25. Different narrative in Legacy of Ashes.

he used the cia to flip him out of office. I am sure a bit of research can point you to other operations run by the cia during his tenure.

[The Stranger]

24. Hellerstein needs to be impeached.

There is no defensible legal basis for this.