Posted on 12/18/2007 9:26:48 AM PST by ConorMacNessa
WASHINGTON — A federal judge has ordered a hearing on whether the Bush administration violated a court order by destroying CIA interrogation videos of two Al Qaeda suspects.
U.S. District Judge Henry H. Kennedy rejected calls from the Justice Department to stay out of the matter. He ordered lawyers to appear before him Friday morning.
In June 2005, Kennedy ordered the administration to safeguard "all evidence and information regarding the torture, mistreatment, and abuse of detainees now at the United States Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay."
Five months later, the CIA destroyed the interrogation videos. The recordings involved suspected terrorists Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri. The Justice Department argued that the videos weren't covered by the order because the two men were being held in secret CIA prisons overseas, not at the Guantanamo Bay prison.
David Remes, a lawyer who represents Yemeni detainees at Guantanamo Bay, asked for the court hearing. He said the government was obligated to keep the tapes and he wants to be sure other evidence is not being destroyed.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Judge Henry H. Kennedy, Jr.
Judge Kennedy was appointed to the U.S. District Court in September 1997. He graduated from Princeton University in 1970 and received a J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1973. Following graduation, he worked for a short time for the law firm of Reavis, Pogue, Neal and Rose, then served as an Assistant United States Attorney for the District of Columbia from 1973 to 1976. From 1976 to 1979 he served as a United States Magistrate for the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. In December 1979, he was appointed Associate Judge of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia, where he served until his appointment to the federal bench.
If the tape is destroyed he won’t be hearing it.
Bush did it.
Yep, cutting to the chase, U.S. District Judge Henry H. Kennedy is another corrupt Clinton scumbag.
You’re dead right.
I don't consider waterboarding to be torture, mistreatment or abuse. Have they ever been specifically and legally defined as such? If so, by whom? If not, case closed.
Case closed - NEXT!
“whether the Bush administration violated a court order by destroying CIA interrogation videos”
As I recall the story, the WH and the JD advised the CIA not to destroy the tapes.
So, I guess Bush did it anyway! Yeah, riiiiight!
...winning the war on terror. NEVER FORGET 911...also, never forget our beheaded soldiers who were burned and strung up by our enemies.
"Cccchhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh......"
“Have they ever been specifically and legally defined as such? If so, by whom?”
Unfortunately, there is a strong case to be made that Waterboarding is “torture,” as per 18 U.S.C. 2340, which defines “torture,” for the purposes of U.S. law, to include the infliction of severe mental pain or suffering. It defines “severe mental pain or suffering” to include mental harm caused by or resulting from, among other things, the threat of imminent death.
Since waterboarding, to the extent that it is effective, is effective precisely because it inflicts a threat of imminent death, it is arguably torture under this definition, and, as such, would be prohibited under 18 U.S.C. 2341, which prohibits any U.S. persons from engaging in the activity described, regardless of where such activity occurs.
February 2006............
Judge Henry Kennedy Jr. Sides with Al Qaeda Again
Another Clinton appointee, Judge Henry Kennedy Jr., has decided to rule in favor of Al Qaeda again by ordering the Bush Administration to release documents for its warrantless surveillance program:
A federal judge ordered the Bush administration on Thursday to release documents about its warrantless surveillance program or spell out what it is withholding, a setback to efforts to keep the program under wraps.
At the same time, the Republican chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee said he had worked out an agreement with the White House to consider legislation and provide more information to Congress on the eavesdropping program. The panel’s top Democrat, who has requested a full-scale investigation, immediately objected to what he called an abdication of the committee’s responsibilities.
U.S. District Judge Henry Kennedy ruled that a private group, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, will suffer irreparable harm if the documents it has been seeking since December are not processed promptly under the Freedom of Information Act. He gave the Justice Department 20 days to respond to the group’s request.
“President Bush has invited meaningful debate about the wireless surveillance program,” Kennedy said. “That can only occur if DOJ processes its FOIA requests in a timely fashion and releases the information sought.”
Justice Department spokeswoman Tasia Scolinos said the department has been “extremely forthcoming” with information and “will continue to meet its obligations under FOIA.”
On Capitol Hill, lawmakers also have been seeking more information about Bush’s program that allowed the National Security Agency to eavesdrop — without court warrants — on Americans whose international calls and e-mails it believed might be linked to al-Qaida.
Later Thursday, Bush adviser Karl Rove told at the University of Central Arkansas: “The purpose of the terrorist-surveillance program is to protect lives. The president’s actions were legal and fully consistent with the 4th Amendment and the protection of our civil liberties under the constitution.”
The Electronic Privacy Information Center sued the government in January to dislose information from the domestic(?) surveillance program:
Seeking to compel the immediate disclosure of information concerning the dministration’s warrantless domestic surveillance program, the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) today filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the Department of Justice. The suit asks the federal court in Washington to issue a
preliminary injunction requiring the release of relevant documents within 20 days. The case has been assigned to Judge Henry H. Kennedy, Jr. of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.
This is not the first time the Clinton appointee, Judge Henry H. Kennedy, Jr., has ruled against the Bush Administration in favor of Al Qaeda:
A federal judge in Washington has barred the government from moving 13 Yemenis from Guantanamo Bay to other countries without at least 30 days notice. The judge says the prisoners need a chance to challenge the transfer.
A lawyer for the Yemenis says the men fear winding up in jail indefinitely without due process of law. The lawyer also says the men are worried that they might face torture in another country.
Judge Henry H. Kennedy Jr., a 1997 Clinton appointee, was also involved in ruling on one of the many Clinton Administration scandals:
THE WASHINGTON TIMES 2/10/00 Jerry Seper “…..The Judicial Council of the D.C. Circuit, in a terse two-paragraph ruling, ordered acting Appeals Court Chief Judge Stephen F. Williams to determine why a random computer assignment system at the court was bypassed in four campaign fund-raising prosecutions and a tax-evasion case against Clinton pal Webster L. Hubbell.
Chief District Judge Norma Holloway Johnson abandoned the computer system to send the cases to judges appointed by Mr. Clinton. She has declined public comment on the decision, but told The Washington Times in a letter last month she was authorized to assign “protracted or complex criminal cases to consenting judges when circumstances warrant,” although she did not elaborate.
The new investigation was sought by Rep. Howard Coble, North Carolina Republican and chairman of a House subcommittee that oversees the courts, and Judicial Watch, a conservative public interest law firm…….Mr. Coble’s concerns focused on cases involving Mr. Hubbell, former associate attorney general; Arkansas businessman Charles Yah Lin Trie; Democratic fund-raiser Howard Glicken; Thai lobbyist Pauline Kanchanalak; and Miami fund-raiser Mark B. Jimenez. The judges were Paul L. Friedman, James Robertson and Emmet G. Sullivan, all of whom were named to the bench by Mr. Clinton in 1994; and Henry H. Kennedy Jr., appointed by Mr. Clinton in 1997……”
On Jan. 2, 2002, Judge Henry H. Kennedy Jr. of Federal Disrict Court in Washington overturned one of President Bush’s earliest executive orders which required federal contractors to post notices telling workers they did not have to join unions.
And, even though the Senate balked at the idea, the House is going to open a Congressional inquiry prompted by the Bush administration’s domestic surveillance program. What do you suppose the odds are that this will not be all about politics?
Thanks for that post, IrishMike - that February 2006 order and whether the gov’t has violated same is the predicate for this hearing.
Exactly.
How so? The questionee knows they're not going to actually let him die. There's no actual threat of death. If the questionee makes this threat up in his mind, that's not our problem. We're just making him "uncomfortable".
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