Saturday, May 9, 2009

NY Times: The Missing Voices, Sen. Durbin: "They Frankly Own the Place"

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/07/opinion/07thu1.html?th&emc=th

The Torture Debate: The Missing Voices

New York Times Lead Editorial
May 7th, 2009

Last month's release of memos prepared by the Bush Justice Department and
the disclosure of a report by the International Committee of the Red Cross
on the brutal treatment of detainees expanded public knowledge of an
ignominious chapter in the nation's history.

But these and other related disclosures do not provide a complete record of
the government's abuse of detainees. One missing element is the words of
those prisoners subjected to waterboarding and other brutality.

Those voices remain muffled by a combination of Bush-era resistance to a
reasonable Freedom of Information Act request by the American Civil
Liberties Union, and the gag order imposed on lawyers representing
Guantánamo detainees. Attorney General Eric Holder needs to promptly
repudiate both.

For two years, the A.C.L.U. has been seeking complete transcripts of the
hearings at Guantánamo for 14 men who were previously in C.I.A. custody,
including Abu Zubaydah, who has been described as an operative of Al Qaeda
and was waterboarded at least 83 times. But the publicly released version of
these transcripts deleted all detainee statements about their ordeals.

The A.C.L.U. is appealing an ill-considered ruling by a federal trial judge
in the District of Columbia, who refused to review the sought-after material
before blindly upholding the bogus Bush administration claim that disclosure
would damage national security.

Rather than simply adopt the Bush stand, the Justice Department has obtained
a filing extension and is weighing what to do. Plainly, the right thing to
do is to release the transcripts with the redacted portions filled in. The
Bush team's national security claim always had the odor of a cover-up. The
interrogation program it was protecting has been discontinued, and crucial
details are known. It is unsupportable to blank out grim details.

The same considerations apply to the protective order that prohibits lawyers
for Guantánamo detainees from speaking publicly about their clients'
treatment unless they receive the government's permission or the information
otherwise becomes public. Disclosure of the torture memos and the Red Cross
report gives detainee lawyers more leeway, but they should not have to parse
their words under a threat of prosecution.

Destruction of the C.I.A.'s interrogation videos has eliminated crucial
evidence of the horrors heaped on key detainees. It is unclear exactly when
the torture began, and whether the procedures followed stayed within the
limits set forth by the Bush legal team. That makes it all the more
important for the Obama administration to let detainees' voices be heard.

While such accounts are suppressed, culpable ex-officials are busily trying
to rewrite history. Consider a recent chat at a college reception between a
student and Condoleezza Rice, who as White House national security adviser
was deeply involved in the development of the authorization of brutality and
torture.

Among the many absurd things Ms. Rice did was to offer this argument that
waterboarding is legal: "By definition, if it was authorized by the
president, it did not violate our obligations under the Convention Against
Torture."

That notion is just as ludicrous today as it was when Richard Nixon used it
more than 30 years ago to excuse his own brand of lawbreaking.

***

http://www.truthout.org/050809J?n

"They Frankly Own the Place"


by: Matt Renner
t r u t h o u t. May 8, 2009

"And the banks - hard to believe in a time when we're facing a banking
crisis that many of the banks created - are still the most powerful lobby on
Capitol Hill. And they frankly own the place." - Illinois Sen. Richard
Durbin

What happens when a powerful senator goes up against an industry which
has received roughly four trillion dollars in taxpayer support to stave off
complete collapse? The senator loses.

Or at least that seems to be what happened last week when an amendment,
which would have given bankruptcy judges the ability to adjust or "cram
down" mortgages to help borrowers avoid foreclosure, was not able to garner
the 60 votes needed to overcome a self-imposed invisible filibuster, which
continues to haunt the Democrats in the Senate.

A procedural step to cut off debate and move to vote on the amendment
was defeated by a 45 to 51 vote on the floor of the Senate, with 12
Democrats crossing the isle to vote with a unified Republican Party.

After the vote, Illinois Sen. Richard Durbin, the second highest ranking
Democrat and author of the legislation, broke a taboo of the Senate with a
charge of institution-wide corruption.

"And the banks - hard to believe in a time when we're facing a banking
crisis that many of the banks created - are still the most powerful lobby on
Capitol Hill. And they frankly own the place," Durbin said.

Consumer advocates who supported the bill were upset after being
outmuscled by industry lobbyists.

"The banking industry, after receiving hundreds of billions of dollars
in federal assistance, spent millions of dollars in its campaign against
this measure. As a result of today's vote, foreclosures will continue to
soar, the value of all homes will be diminished and the entire economy will
be worse off," Michael Calhoun, president of the Center for Responsible
Lending, said in a statement shortly after the vote.

The 12 Democrats who split from the party to kill the "cram down"
amendment were Max Baucus (Montana), Michael Bennet (Colorado), Robert Byrd
(West Virginia), Thomas Carper (Delaware), Byron Dorgan (North Dakota), Tim
Johnson (South Dakota), Mary Landrieu (Louisianan), Blanche Lincoln
(Arkansas), Ben Nelson (Nebraska), Mark Pryor (Arkansas), Arlen Specter
(Pennsylvania) and Jon Tester (Montana).

Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Indiana) voted for cloture after previous reports that
he was opposed to the legislation.

One notable no-vote came from Chairman of the Senate Committee on
Finance Senator Baucus, who is set to play a pivotal role in legislation
aimed at the re-regulation of the finance industry. Baucus has come under
fire from progressive pundits for publicly pushing back against the Obama
administration's recent initiative to investigate corporate tax havens and
for suggesting that single-payer government-run health care legislation is
not an option.

The Bank Lobby

According to recent reports and organizations that track campaign
contributions, financiers spend billions of dollars to help elect members of
Congress and pay teams of insider lobbyists to remind politicians of the
financial industry's interests every year.

The Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit investigative reporting
organization, released a report on Wednesday examining the subprime mortgage
lenders, who lowered lending standards, made millions of risky loans and
undermined the foundation of the financial industry - all with the blessing
of Washington. Their actions were dangerous and, according to regulation
experts, amounted to fraud in many cases. But they were able to avoid
regulation and rake in unprecedented profits in part because of a massive
lobbying campaign.

The report found that subprime lenders and the major banks which
financed their activities spent $370 million on lobbying and direct
contributions over the past decade.

Countrywide Financial, the now-defunct infamous subprime lender, issued
$97 billion in subprime loans between 2005 and 2007. Countrywide spent
roughly $11 million on campaign contributions and lobbying over the last
decade.

The financial industry as a whole spent $5 billion on lobbying and
campaign funding between 1998 and 2008, according to a report by two
consumer groups.

"Sold Out: How Wall Street and Washington Betrayed America", a 231-page
report debuted in March by Essential Information and the Consumer Education
Foundation, details the lobbying and campaign spending by the financial
industry and the legislation they got in return.

The defeat of the mortgage "cram down" amendment was just the latest win
for the banks. The report lists numerous anti-regulation steps taken by
Washington politicians, who rolled back legal checks and destroyed public
oversight.

The lobbying disclosure forms for the second quarter of 2009 are likely
to show an increase in lobbying expenditures by bailed-out companies as they
ramp up efforts to fight legislation cracking down on anti-consumer lending
practices.

"Profit-driven companies wouldn't be making campaign contributions if it
didn't buy them influence or access," Dan Newman, the executive director of
MAPLight.org told Truthout, adding "It's a question of access. Who's in the
room when the laws are being written, the homeowner or the bank lobbyists
who collectively give legislators millions of dollars in campaign
contributions?"

MAPLight tracks the money trail between industry and politicians in
Washington and has been following the "cram down" legislation closely.
Newman believes that the way campaigns are financed is the major underlying
problem.

"If you have two candidates running for office and one is a
finance-industry-friendly candidate and the other is the consumer-friendly
candidate, the finance-industry-friendly candidate is going to get tens of
thousands of dollars from the financial services industry that the other
consumer-friendly candidate is not going to get. So, the
finance-industry-friendly candidate is going to have much more money to run
for election and is more likely to win. He or she is more likely to stay in
office, because candidates that vote in alignment with industry interests
have more money to run for re-election. So you have this system where
Congress as a whole is bought and biased in favor of industry, even if no
individual legislator changes their mind on a vote.

"If you are a member of the Senate and at the end of the day you have 25
messages to return, who are you going to call? A constituent who is losing
their home to foreclosure or someone from Citigroup or Goldman Sachs who has
given you hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions?"

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