Candice wrote on April 25, 2009 04:01 PM: Since Ensign Reid and Bybee are all members of Mormon church, I can see why the Senators put friendship and click before the Rule of Law.

John Seal wrote on April 25, 2009 05:13 AM: Calling what the United States has done,in interrogating detainees, "torture" is politically motivated foolishness. Senator Ensign is saying the "Emperor has no clothes." Good for him.

Robert G. Latham wrote on April 24, 2009 07:01 PM: Honorable Senator Ensign:
Thank you for supporting this judge. Encourage all your colleagues to do the same! Call for public exposure of what Paulson and Burnanki knew about Morgan-Stanley's gold and silver that went to them from the failed Bear Sterns buyout. There were many treasury people who knew about this. I could source this for you if you are interested. Sincerely, R. Latham

Continuum wrote on April 24, 2009 11:15 AM: Gee . . . who would've thunk it?

Ensign stands firmly behind a neocon Bush syncophant . . . a man, who decided that the Constitution and the Bill of Rights were mere suggestions.

Not only should Bybee be impeached, but he should be standing before a certain court in the Hague.

Bybee doesn't belong on a bench in traffic court, no less a Federal circuit.

john wrote on April 23, 2009 12:13 AM: good throw that lying cheater Gibbons out too while you are at it!

Brent wrote on April 22, 2009 11:53 PM: Exactly Elise.

patrick wrote on April 22, 2009 09:35 PM: Elise:

I will stand up for you, and all other Americans who still believe in the rule of law instead of the reign of tyranny; we are the silent majority no more!

BobbyG wrote on April 22, 2009 07:40 PM: Some observations by someone quite close to the eye of the storm, Philip Zelikow, of the 9/11 Commission and former Counsel to Secretary Rice:
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"I circulated an opposing view of the legal reasoning. My bureaucratic position, as counselor to the secretary of state, didn't entitle me to offer a legal opinion. But I felt obliged to put an alternative view in front of my colleagues at other agencies, warning them that other lawyers (and judges) might find the OLC views unsustainable. My colleagues were entitled to ignore my views. They did more than that: The White House attempted to collect and destroy all copies of my memo.

Stated in a shorthand way, mainly for the benefit of other specialists who work these issues, my main concerns were:

- the case law on the "shocks the conscience" standard for interrogations would proscribe the CIA's methods;

- the OLC memo basically ignored standard 8th Amendment "conditions of confinement" analysis (long incorporated into the 5th amendment as a matter of substantive due process and thus applicable to detentions like these). That case law would regard the conditions of confinement in the CIA facilities as unlawful.

- the use of a balancing test to measure constitutional validity (national security gain vs. harm to individuals) is lawful for some techniques, but other kinds of cruel treatment should be barred categorically under U.S. law -- whatever the alleged gain.
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Google 'The OLC "torture memos": thoughts from a dissenter'

BobbyG wrote on April 22, 2009 07:06 PM: @Allen -

I suppose next you'll be "correctly interpreting" words in bible passages for me. You just keep right on parsing.

"So Bybee looked at the actions and precautions, and decided that the intent was not to cause severe physical or mental pain or suffering."
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No, Bybee decided that the "intent" was to educe intel information via the coercive application of a variety of escalating means of actual and threatened violence, in clear contravention of Geneva.

While you're educating me on proper lexical constructive methodology, why don't you quantify for me the contextual meaning of "severe"? 'eh?

"So Bybee looked at the actions and precautions..."

Why would "precautions" even be necessary given your asserted legal propriety of the coercion? More fig leaves, bro'.

Elise wrote on April 22, 2009 06:51 PM: Has anyone considered that maybe Bybee was given his place on the federal bench in return for his creative writing skills! I think if you look closely at the Bush administration you will find many people especially in the Justice Department that were placed there to give exactly the opinions that Bush and Cheney wanted.

I am so tired of hearing the TORTURED logic used to justify "Enhanced Interrogations" that I want to scream. We are a nation of laws and when we surrender the higher moral ground we lose not them. What little information if any that was received couldn't have possibly been worth the long term cost to our nations soul.

As for John Ensign we should all be embarrassed that we elected him. He has been nothing more than a yes man for the fox noise crowd. But wait Obama should hang his head in shame for not having the stones to push for the prosecution of these DOMESTIC TERRORISTS! He can't afford to have anyone poking around now that it has become clear that sweet Nancy Pelosi knew about it in 2002.

Impeach Bybee and vote the rest of them out. I fear for my safety in a Country that thinks this kind of treatment is acceptable under any terms. If we can do it to those who haven't been tried or convicted of anything it makes it easier the next time we decide to go after another group. At first they came for the muslim terrorists and no one stood up, then they came for the Christian Crusaders and no one stood up and then they came for the Jews and no one stood up and when they came for me, a lover of my country and the republic for which she stands, I stood alone.

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