Bush signed an executive order yesterday defining what torture is acceptable and what will be banned

[kpete]

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL USA
PRESS RELEASE

"The fact that President Bush continues to assert the authority to engage in secret detentions and applies that authority to a broad range of people who can picked up anywhere around the world indicates an unrepentant administration that seeks to minimize the rule of the law."
http://www.amnestyusa.org/document.php?id=ENGUSA20070720002&lang=e


US: Presidential Order Affirms CIA Secret Detentions
Allows Detention in Violation of Geneva Conventions
http://hrw.org/english/docs/2007/07/20/usdom16444.htm


This has all the earmarks of an order designed to continue rather than limit CIA abusive interrogation techniques.
http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/7/21/22259/1373



Bush signed an executive order yesterday defining what torture is acceptable and what will be banned.

According to the senior administration official, the C.I.A. will bar the International Committee of the Red Cross from visiting detainees in agency hands, a prohibition it has enforced in the past.

more at:
http://apnews.myway.com//article/20070721/D8QGPJBG0.html


Acceptable:

sleep deprivation, stress positions,


Unacceptable:

Torture of other acts of violence serious enough to be consider comparable to murder, torture, mutilation, or cruel and inhuman treatment.

Humiliating sexual positions and acts, disrespect for religious articles/symbols.


Water boarding was not addressed!

http://www.haloscan.com/comments.php?user=katsiva&comment=3186612400654581302#2496692

[Joanne98]

1. I'm ready to get rid of the exec order completely!

[peekaloo]

2. a kinder, gentler form of torture.

Poopy must be so proud.

[youngdem]

3. The order also explicitly says it has no force of law

This is pure, out and out WINDOW DRESSING ONLY.

This is a cover letter for conduct surely occurring as we speak.

[Kagemusha]

5. Actually, what it says is that the order gives victims no right to sue.

The point of an executive order in the first place is to order federal employees on how to implement laws passed by Congress. (That's the legitimate form, anyway.) It's therefore not lawful for CIA people to violate this order.. but it'd have to be the DoJ that'd sue them, not the victims.

Good luck with that, obviously.

[rasputin1952]

7. Not being able bring suit, means that there is no recourse for the victim...

essentially, they are barred from court to access the position of redress,,,and that of course, does not just mean monetary redress, but essentially it shuts the door on bringing the matter before a court to determine it's legality.

[youngdem]

11. If an order removes your standing, it is functionally the same as losing the right

If you can't sue to protect your right, what deterrent does the order serve, other than providing further legal cover to those who torture in our name?

[Kagemusha]

12. I'm just saying that's not exactly the same thing as "no force of law".

It has the force of law so far as the President is willing to enforce his order, which was issued in compliance with a law passed by Congress demanding such regulations be implemented. I don't expect you to be satisfied with that; I'm not either. But you're asking the order to do something it was never going to do. Frankly, if it did what you wanted it to do, it'd probably be unconstitutional anyway - Congress needs to step up if human rights are supposed to be protected properly. Last chance it had, it didn't do anywhere near enough - and even then this took 9 months of foot dragging to reach.

[RFKJrNews]

4. That sends a nice message to the rest of the world

Way to go, President Bush. Could your approval ratings go any lower?

Wanna find out? Just keep doing what you're doing, Mr. President.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., speaking to the Charleston Gazette this week said: “It’s important to impeach Bush as a civics lesson — to say to the American people that America doesn’t torture people!”

“You can’t just tear up the Bill of Rights,” he added. “He has to be impeached. The American people have to remember how sacred the Constitution of the United States is.”

Amen, Bobby.

Read the full story here: http://RFKin2008.com

If he were our next President, I'm willing to bet my last dollar that he would sign an executive order shutting down ALL those secret CIA prisons on January 21, 2009!

Draft RFK Jr. to run in 2008 - for all the right reasons.

[rasputin1952]

6. The only thing justifying torture does is make it easier for every sadist

in the world to hold a view that their "measures" are somehow acceptable. Torture, in all of it's forms, must be erased from the globe.

Since no one in this administration has any thought that they themselves could, under this directive, be taken and tortured, they simply don't care. Just one more shot at creating an imperial presidency.

bush wants the position of president to be one of royal dictates, that alone breaks his pledge to "protect and defend the Constitution".

[rucky]

8. In other words, you can't leave visible marks.

It's the abuser's code of conduct.

[hisownpetard]

9. WHY NOW?

There's more to this story that hasn't become apparent yet,
IMO, some reason Bush felt he had to cover his ass with this
'new rule.' Anyone have any thoughts on this?

[Hubert Flottz]

10. executive order = Royal Decree

America is owned by Bush and Cheney and congress knows it.

[librechik]

13. I bet they categorize waterboarding as a "stress position" n/t