Here is Rachel Maddow's treatment on a news, see if you like it. In case you missed it lst night.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/#29129616MADDOW: And now it is time for another installment in our thankfully very infrequent series, the RACHEL MADDOW SHOW melodramatic re-enactment. First the setting. The Ninth Circuit Federal Court of Appeals in San Francisco . The occasion, a case involving the alleged transport and torture of five terrorism suspects who were picked up as part of the CIA‘s extraordinary rendition program.
The context here, the Bush administration‘s Justice Department getting the case dismissed last year using one of Mr. Bush‘s favorite tactics, claiming state secrets. They made the argument that even talking about this case in court, even with sensitive information excluded, would jeopardize national security.
Good thing there‘s a new president in office, right, with a new Department of Justice in place for when those five prisoners appeal that dismissal, right? Right? Because there‘s no way that the Obama administration would repeat the blanket state secrecy invocation, right? Right?
Let‘s take a look at what was actually said by the lawyer and a judge in the San Francisco courtroom yesterday. We now join the hearing already fake in progress.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KENT JONES, POP CULTURIST (on camera): May it please the court. I‘m Douglas Letter for the United States Department of Justice, which has intervened in this case to urge affirmance.
MADDOW (on camera): When was the district court decision?
JONES: Hmm, about a year ago, February.
MADDOW: About a year ago? Yes. Is there anything material that has happened since that decision in terms of historical stage that has any bearing here?
JONES: No, your honor. No.
MADDOW: The change of administration has no bearing?
JONES: No, your honor.
MADDOW: The government‘s position is the same?
JONES: Exactly, your honor. The positions that I‘m arguing have been thoroughly vetted with the appropriate officials within the new administration and these are the authorized positions.
MADDOW: So you represent that you are conveying the views of the present Justice Department?
JONES: Exactly, your honor. Absolutely. Absolutely.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: That scene is probably the closest we will ever get to seeing a federal judge, or at least a fake federal judge, doing a spit take.
Like most people who were conscious during the last election cycle, Judge Schroeder probably assumed that the person who spent the better part of two years campaigning against Bush-era secrecy and Bush-era detention, interrogation and torture policies, the man who is now president, Barack Obama, would not go use the exact same state secrets defense that the Bush administration used as a blanket shield from accountability.
A defense that means the government can do whatever it wants. It can break the law. It can avoid accountability by hiding behind state secrets. This provision intended to protect individual classified documents, but ballooned and mass-produced by the Bush administration to get entire cases preemptively dismissed.
Did that really just happen like we think it did? Or did Kent and I make it seem way worse than it really was?
Joining us now is Ben Wizner, the ACLU attorney who argued on behalf of the five plaintiffs and against the Obama Justice Department, and who will hopefully forgive me and Kent for acting out that hearing like idiots. Mr. Wizner, it‘s nice to meet you. Thank you for coming in.
BEN WIZNER, ACLU ATTORNEY: Thanks for having me and thank you also for not having somebody play me in the reenactment. I appreciate it.
MADDOW: We thought about it.
WIZNER: Yes.
MADDOW: And we realized you‘re going to be here in person. You might be mad.
Let‘s understand the context. Who are your five clients and why did you take this case?
WIZNER: These are five foreign citizens who were abducted off the streets of various countries, who had their clothes sliced off by CIA black renditions teams. These are people dressed like ninjas head to toe, who were chained to the floor of airplanes, dressed in diapers and flown to dungeons literally around the world.
Some of these were CIA black sites that were operated by our government. Some of them were prisons in countries like Egypt and Iraq that are absolutely notorious for their torture. And these flights were facilitated and organized by a private corporation that we sued in this lawsuit.
This isn‘t the first time that we‘ve tried to bring the administration into court on behalf rendition victims. We brought a lawsuit earlier on behalf of an innocent German citizen named Khalid al-Masri that was similarly thrown out on these bogus state secrets grounds.
We were hoping on Monday to have a different kind of experience with a new administration. But as you saw and as you reenacted, this is just a kinder and gentler version of “trust us.”
MADDOW: I know that the arguments in this case, the briefs had been fully prepared by the time that the Obama administration walked in the door here. All that was left to them was to do the oral arguments here. But did Obama really just take this and run with it? Did they have another option here? Couldn‘t they even just have asked for more time to come up with a different plan?
WIZNER: That would have been the obvious thing for them to do.
Remember, this is a motion to dismiss filed by the Bush administration. The basis for this motion to dismiss our lawsuit was a declaration filed by Michael Hayden, the current head of the CIA for maybe a few more days. I don‘t know how much longer.
And that declaration says that the CIA‘s detention and interrogation program is one of most vital tools in our war against terrorists. That if we let this case go forward, it will reveal classified interrogation techniques that will train enemies on how to resist it.
But on January 22nd, the actual president of the United States essentially ended that program. He banned those techniques. He closed the CIA prisons. He said that from now on, we‘re going to comply with our treaties that prevent transfer of prisoners to countries that exercise torture.
And so the question was, what is the Justice Department doing defending a declaration like that?
MADDOW: Right.
WIZNER: And why are they standing in the way of accountability? And I do want to say here that there is no moral equivalent between the two administrations. You know, we have the benefit no longer to have our country run by war criminals.
And it is terribly significant that the administration ended so-called enhanced interrogation. It‘s shutting down Guantanamo and the extraordinary rendition program. Where we differ is on another critical issue and that‘s the question of accountability.
And I think that this administration would prefer to sweep the last seven years under the rug and move on and get along. The problem is not a single torture victim, and there are hundreds, has yet had his day in court.
And you did a segment on prosecution - I understand that‘s a controversial issue. The other side of the coin is civil liability. And if torture victims aren‘t going to be able to go into court at all - and bear in mind these victims can‘t go into court. I don‘t know which victims will be able to go into court.
Then, really, you‘ll have an immunity regime for the perpetrators, for the violators and it will be impossible really to enforce the prohibitions that are in those executive orders and in our laws.
MADDOW: This is really important stuff. Ben Wizner, attorney with the ACLU National Security Project, who argued for these five plaintiffs in yesterday‘s hearing. I hope that we helped get the word out about this. It seems incredibly important to me. Thank you for working on the case.
Thanks for joining us.
WIZNER: Thanks for having me on, Rachel.
