And "clean team." What was the original team called?
Ratfuckers. Republicans have used it as a badge of honor before.
I love the fact that they gave them Starbucks coffee and that the writer thought that that was an important detail.
Also, if one of the six was KSM, is it perhaps the tiniest bit relevant that we are holding his young children hostage?
Starbucks coffee and that the writer thought that that was an important detail.
The "lemon chicken" moment is key in stories of this type.
Man is this period going to offer rich pickings for future historians of politics and empire.
And that we fed them when they were hungry was worthy of note. Jesus H. Christ.
Dude, if you withheld coffee from me for, what, four, five years? And then offered me a latte? I'd confess to pretty much anything.
Like DeLong says, the Bush Administration is worse than you imagine it to be, even taking into account that it's worse than you imagine it to be.
Man is this period going to offer rich pickings for future historians of politics and empire.
If any.
Awesome product placement. I'm sure that Starbucks' advertising team is pleased.
I hate msnbc, or whichever wire wrote this story. I'm too lazy to click through, but not too lazy to hate.
"time-tested rapport-building techniques"
"Hey Khalid, remember that time you got tortured for three years? Bet that sucked. Sure is nice we got such a good rapport now -- nobody gotta get tortured, nobody gotta torture nobody. Sign here, please."
Is there any principled reason why a news report should refer to these people as 'detainees' rather than 'prisoners'? Is it just love of jargon? Does 'detainee' actually sound better or more innocuous?
I understand why that the administration refers to them as 'detainees' because 'prisoners of war' deserve Geneva protections and 'prisoners,' in a liberal democracy, deserve a day in court in the past or future. But 'prisoner' just means a person whose been imprisoned. They're really making the claim that we shouldn't act like a liberal democracy with regard to these people, without getting our ears to twitch. But why does the press go along with this even on stories that are ostensibly critical of the administration's detention policies?
Because they're not prisoners. 'Prisoners' usually refers to people who have been tried and convicted. Detainees refer to people in jail or who are pre-trial. That is, people who are being detained, not serving a sentence.
It's not just the administration. When I did work on a jail conditions case, we referred to the people in the jail as 'detainees' to emphasize that they hadn't been tried yet.
13: My guess is that because it's been successfully politicized such that people would argue that the news organization is "advocating" if they used the word prisoners. You see this most insanely in the Is/rael-Pal/estine discussions, where I've seen entire newspaper op-ed pages devoted to infuriated discussions of how evil the newspaper is to use the phrase suicide vs. homicide bombers, or to call or not call someone a terrorist.
I hate to disagree with the normally brilliant m.leblanc, but I don't think that's why. Reporters are very, very often sloppy about this kind of terminology. Words that have hyper-specific technical meanings are redefined or sloppily defined in the popular press all the time. There are clear, non-overlapping legal definitions for refugees, asylees, and immigrants, but you wouldn't know it to read most papers.
It's an interesting variant on a strategy used to circumvent Miranda in which the suspect is first questioned without benefit of warnings. Once a confession is obtained, warnings are provided and the suspect is led to repeat his confession. The U.S. Supreme Court has held in Missouri v. Seibert (plurality decision) that the second confession is inadmissible if the two stage technique was employed as a deliberate end-run around Miranda.
Witt is, of course, right on all counts, but it doesn't change the fact that 'detainee' is actually the correct word in this particular instance.
what's depressing about 18 is that it's necessary.
Dude, if you withheld coffee from me for, what, four, five years? And then offered me a latte? I'd confess to pretty much anything.
The studies have fairly well documented that a skilled interrogator can get someone to confess to pretty much anything.
Eyewitness identifications? Horrible too.
What, lemon chicken and rice pilaf aren't enough for these scum?
OT:
Nobody has handed me any money for my vote yet.
I'll be voting at 545pm today in case any offers should be made.
20: Actually, what's most depressing about 18 is that , by and large, it looks like the two-stage technique still survives so long as the cops testify at the suppression hearing that, "Oh, oops, I just really goofed not giving the Miranda warnings that first time. Totally not deliberate."
The first team? Still wanted by the government, they survive as soldiers of fortune. If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire... The Yoo-Team.
Interesting note:
if you do not ask if you are free to leave, then you are not actually in custody.
Cop:
"He was free to leave at any time."
Defendant:
"There were two cops intensely questioning me. I didnt think I could leave."
Court:
"He was free to leave at any time."
24: I'd say that's more depressing. Resistance to the idea of Miranda on the part of police really isn't a good sign, and reflects very badly on the internal view towards professionalism.
Is/rael-Pal/estine
Googleproofed so that Ehud Olmert won't browse his way to Unfogged and get his feelings hurt, I assume.
Dude, have you seen the discussions at Crooked Timber on I/P? No way do I want to bring down that kind of invasion on Unfogged. They probably wouldn't even bring us any good desserts.
25 is funny.
Also, even if the administration insists on using "detainees" rather than "prisoners", they've just succeeded in making it much more terrifying to contemplate being a "detainee" than a "prisoner". At least "prisoners" have undergone some sort of legal process.
14
It seems like a double-edged sword, though. If you're calling someone a detainee to avoid the inference that he's being 'punished' for something he's done, you risk suggesting that the time he spends actually locked up isn't a really 'punishing,' that it doesn't really count.
The danger for these men, at least, is not that they will be presumed guilty by the fallacious inference that "all prisoners are people who are guilty of crimes" but that they will never get a fair day in court. That they will be relegated to a category where the common sense notions of convicted/acquitted and imprisoned/at liberty don't apply.
It's intolerable that we imprison people without letting them see the evidence against them. But if we only detain some enemy combatants indefinitely...eh
Anyway, my query was suggested by the dictionary.com definitions:
Prisoner
1. a person who is confined in prison or kept in custody, esp. as the result of legal process.
2. prisoner of war.
3. a person or thing that is deprived of liberty or kept in restraint.
Detainee
1. a person held in custody, esp. for a political offense or for questioning.
I guess I'm not really disagreeing with m.leblanc, I'm just saying that what was once a euphemism in a virtuous rhetorical strategy has become a euphemism in a iniquitous one. It seems like you adopted 'detainee' because the prisoner/convict distinction had been muddled in your audience's mind...or am I misinterpreting?
I can picture the jury now: "Well, they did give them Starbucks. We don't even get Starbucks in the courthouse!"
I read the Washington Post version of this story from beginning to end just out of sheer disbelief that journalism could be this bad.
The story refers to "coercive interrogation" and uses other language designed to obscure the facts. And the Post accepts more-or-less uncritically the idea that:
The men were read rights similar to a standard U.S. Miranda warning, and officials designed the program to get to the information the CIA already had gleaned by using waterboarding, which simulates drowning, and other techniques such as sleep deprivation, forced standing and the use of extreme temperatures.
The Post makes a nod toward the fact that this sort of thing is of dubious legality, but remarkably doesn't seem to care if information obtained this way is likely to be accurate. Here's the extent of the Post's concern:
An unanswered question is whether the FBI and military interrogators could have extracted the same information without a road map from the CIA indicating what they might say. It also remains unknowable whether the detainees would have responded to a friendly approach without first receiving more aggressive treatment.
I wonder what would've been a good way to know that...
33: It's going to be the cable television in prison argument all over.
Right. It's like 'information' is something objectively valid -- "they said it, so we know it's true! The only question is if we legally touched third base getting it."
Giving somebody Starbucks coffee is a form of torture.
Let's face it.
All that people care about is that these people hate the United States. Anything beyond that is irrelevant to far too many people. It is too abstract and not based in their own reality.
26: So if you ask if you can leave, they then can tell you no? Are you just supposed to get up and walk away?
Dude, have you seen the discussions at Crooked Timber on I/P?
We've had plenty of Israel/Palestine discussions on Unfogged, and they've been relatively civil. And I don't see how googleproofing the names will prevent a discussion from cropping up.
You know I could almost see this being slightly valid if they explained to KSM et al why they were going through the whole process again, and made sure he knew nothing he'd said before could be used against him. Also, the FBI investigators would have to know nothing about what he had previously confessed to. I assume the chance that happened is exactly zero.
"unknowable" s/b "a critical, glaring question begged by the government's position"
So if you ask if you can leave, they then can tell you no? Are you just supposed to get up and walk away?
They tell you yes while telling you no.
"Of course you can leave any time you want to leave. If you really want to get jammed up with a bunch of charges."
39 to 44. Watch your back, stras.
So if you ask if you can leave, they then can tell you no?
Yes. Now, once they've told you no, then you're under arrest. But if you simply guessed accurately that they would tell you that you couldn't leave if you asked, and so didn't ask, then you're not under arrest and the Miranda warnings aren't necessary. Or that's my sense of how it works.
So if you ask if you can leave, they then can tell you no? Are you just supposed to get up and walk away?
Technically, you are in custody for Miranda purposes if a reasonable person in your position would not believe s/he was free to leave. At least one federal circuit, however, has held that handcuffing a suspect does not necessarily mean s/he is in custody.
Every interrogation - by the police, by the FBI, by the CIA, by anyone - should be recorded on video. And if it isn't recorded on video, it shouldn't be worth shit.
51: You just don't learn, do you. Let's see how you feel after some lemon chicken.
51: whatever crazy Obama cultist! You and your fascist surveillance society!
Someone -- the ACLU?-- makes a wallet card with how to safely interact with police detaining you while preserving your rights, I think.
Never agree to a breathalyzer, I know that much.
54. Point 1. Do not be seen consulting this card.
52: Is there a vegetarian alternative at Gitmo?
Vegetarian? Oh, my bad. I thought these were torture euphemisms.
44:With so much on common, why can't stras and I get along?
33 is optimistic in assuming the existence of a jury.
60: Because you're insane.
McManus isn't insane, he's just differently-saned.
God, I hate America.
No you don't, you'd be lost without it.
All members of the "Clean Team" had bald heads and an earring and a drove white panel truck with a sign that read: "America's Clean Team -- The beatings will continue until morale improves."
Some days I think the Hawaii independence people have a point. Or at least they're no crazier than McManus, and I don't mind hanging out with him.
No you don't, you'd be lost without it.
I hate Stockholm Syndrome, too.
God, I hate America.
America is a parody of itself at this point, no? (Which isn't funny, but is nonetheless true.)
66 - Dude, I would secede from the U.S. instantly if California, or even the whole West Coast could form its own country. There are nice parts of the U.S. Constitution I'd like to keep, but I don't understand in the least why the U.S. should be one country.
I've often thought that NYC with Long Island and Jersey for food security would make a very pleasant little city-state.
69: Yeah, but California, or better yet the west coast states together, are big enough to be viable on their own. Hawaii, not so much.
On the general point, emotionally I'm with you, but intellectually I think I'd go the other way. Maybe start by merging with Canada, Mexico, and the EU and go from there. Lots of autonomy for states/regions/pissant European countries/whatever, but pretty much your basic black helicopter paranoid fantasy. There are a whole lot of problems with the current political structure of the U.S., but I'm not sure that defining "us guys" too broadly is really one of them.
71: I've wanted a "U.S. OUT OF NORTH AMERICA" t-shirt for ages, but I've never seen one.
69: Same here in Vermont. Plans for a Second Vermont Republic are reportedly serious, but I'm not holding my breath.
And for more fun news, via TPM here's Scalia on torture in an interview with the BBC
I suspect that as time goes on the American government and military will become increasingly autonomous and globally powerful, so that the American people have no more control of it than the Belgian or Thai people do. Americans will be, at best, the most-favored of the subject peoples.
No, we're not there already. And no, I don't say that it's inevitable.
There are good explanations why this shouldn't happen, It depends on how autonomous the military factor can be.
Umh, how does one insert links here? I did the standard html thing of [a href=URL]text[/a] (pointy brackets) and it didn't work
Secession, esp. unilateral secession, as appealing as it is (I'm a fan of periodic articles in periodicals pondering New York secession), is a dangerous principle and shouldn't be endorsed. To put it in a more inflammatory manner, what else does the "Treason" in "Treason in defense of slavery" consist of?
I suspect that as time goes on the American government and military will become increasingly autonomous and globally powerful, so that the American people have no more control of it than the Belgian or Thai people do. Americans will be, at best, the most-favored of the subject peoples.
No, we're not there already. And no, I don't say that it's inevitable.
There are good explanations why this shouldn't happen, It depends on how autonomous the military factor can be.
What are the exact dangers? (Asking sincerely)
We can't fight off an enemy invasion if we are five or six smaller countries?
Food security would be endangered if not under the control of one country?
Naturally destabilizing to break apart, hard to manage the transition? Writing new Constitutions opens the doors to potentially Bad Shit?
I mean, yeah, it is real dangerous to the existence of the old government. But what are the exact threats I should plan for that outweigh the temptations?
I figured detainee was someone that had a tain, but had had it removed - probably via torture.
78: You need quotes around the URL -- I went into your comment and edited to fix it.
Megan, if we were five or six other countries we couldn't invade other countries, and people who want to use the U.S. as support for that kind of project wouldn't be able to do so.
I'm just thinking slippery slope, which I for no reason I can explicate find more persuasive in this context than in almost any other. The principle of secession is of potentially unlimited application since individual states, counties, cities, townships are no more of a natural kind than a nation is and makes a system of government by law, formed by a democratic majority, impossible. Systems of majority rule within limits are the best kind we have.
Bye, Bye Megan.
Maybe Napi can visit her at Gitmo.
85 - What if we promised to only do it once, for a very long time? It isn't like there aren't fairly obvious big divisions to make the initial rough cut easy.
CharleyCarp would save me!!! And Katherine!
I promise to help on the briefs and send a letter quarterly for the first 5 years.
Us liberal non-Californians would be seriously screwed by a Cali secession.
My pleasure. I might consider a postcard now and again too.
Us liberal non-Californians would be seriously screwed by a Cali secession.
One hopes they would have lenient rules for immigration.
93 Buffer countries! Sorry 'bout that, Teo.
"...since individual states, counties, cities, townships are no more of a natural kind than a nation is and makes a system of government by law, formed by a democratic majority, impossible."
But but that would be anarchy. Oh dear.
The goal should be an umbrella of international law & regulation that provides protection and promotion of city-state democracy so as to make the nation-state obsolete. An independent Scotland and Barcelona become possible within an EU framework.
What are the exact dangers? (Asking sincerely)
Naturally destabilizing to break apart, hard to manage the transition?
Megan! "Sincerely" is supposed to mean sincerely. Yeah, hard to manage the transition, almost impossibly difficult to pull off a secession without being squashed like a bug. Better have a hell of a lot of plans in place to withstand the fight.
Bob, you don't get to mock me for opposing anarchy, I'm sorry.
96: Kidding aside, being big enough that nobody wants to pick a fight with you is a good thing. Our problem is that we're a bully, but you can be big without being a bully. Step one in that is learning that other people are also human. We're not going to get to world government in our lifetimes, but we can do a better job of participating responsibly in international organizations and living up to international commitments, and doing so seems more likely to build the sort of world I'd prefer to live in that breaking up the U.S. does.
What's with the exclamation point? I'm not advocating a civil war over this. But if everyone were game, then a transition would still be hard to manage and I would want it to be well thought through.
If everyone were game the transition would be managed by magical rainbow ponies, so no worries.
Oh, the exclamation point was about the "sincerely," as in 'sincerely asking what the dangers would be.' Which I took to not really be a serious question .. because, well, I doubt everyone (the rest of the country) would be game.
I'm hoping to sweeten the pot by letting them break away too. New York and Vermont are (separately) tempted. I can see it in their eyes.
Vermont does not need an invitation from the likes of you pacific northwesterners, I can tell you that; though they'd probably be interested in a trade deal. Unless that's cheating.
Thanks California -- leave the rest of us to suffer under Republican Presidents, FOREVER.
I think that Karl Rove and James Dobson might well favor California secession.
Megan, you're missing the whole point of this "government" thing, which is that other people are bastards.
I wasn't using "can't" in the forbidden by rule sense, but in the sense that mocking someone follows various norms of conversation, and that opposing anarchy didn't seem to something that merited mocking.
99, by the way, reads like an attempt to say, "Oh, do you need a girl to protect you?"
And by 99, I meant 108. It's pretty hard to do high dudgeon when you get your comment references wrong.
109: Actually, while she's half-joking, she's missing the whole point that this "government" thing at this point is subservient to the global economy. Everything about what we might should try to do these days is a function of whether and how to rearrange the balance between the sovereign power of nation-states and transnational economic power.
It's difficult to see how secession will help in this; you'd need to make your new little country so small, insignificant and self-sufficient that the rest of the world ignored you while it continues to take itself down. That's tempting, isn't it?
We always say prison, prisoner, imprisoned. They're not 'detained' if no further process is contemplated.
This annoys the government.
Torturing someone into making a confession and then making them repeat it, apparently freely, but really under the threat of further torture, was the method adopted by the Stalinist show trials of 1936-38. There were plenty of observers back then who were naive enough to ask, "if these men were innocent, why did they confess?"