ACLU Supreme Court Preview, CSPAN1 now; repeat /Sibel. nt

[babylonsister]

[cascadiance]

1. Is this being streamed any place? CSPAN.org doesn't seem to be now...

At Work now! :(

[cascadiance]

2. Here it is... Has she already "aired" in this segment?

http://www.c-span.org/watch/cspan_wm.asp?Cat=TV&Code=CS

[cascadiance]

3. She's on NOW at this link!

[lakeguy]

4. thanks!

[whyzayker]

6. BUMP!

n/t

[cascadiance]

13. Another viewing coming up at 1:16 AM EDT on CSPAN 2

... according to the CSPAN web site schedules, for those that missed it earlier today. Sibel's portion is towards the end of the segment that is about 1 1/2 hours long.

http://inside.c-spanarchives.org:8080/cspan/schedule.csp

[FreedomAngel82]

15. Please tell us what she says

She's such a hero!

[cascadiance]

17. A nice new story that I'd not heard her give before was abouto her father.

She relates a story of the time when she was 11 (not sure if this was in Turkey or Iran...) Apparently, the government wanted him to substitute another bullet for the one that was found in a body, so that the blame would be put on someone else for killing this person instead of the real killer. Her father refused, and was a "whistleblower" then to escalate this issue to the public there to call them out for trying to force him into doing that. Her Dad told her along with the essay contest where she wrote a more contentious and "radical" essay (that is also mentioned in the Vanity Fair article), that "In a real democracy like the one in America, this sort of thing wouldn't happen!".

Her father really is our hero too, in that he planted the seeds of her good judgement and her quest for the truth at an early age of her life, even if she lived in an area where this quest was more difficult than it would be here.

I think the other enlightening thing was to hear her lawyer speak in more detail of the way the "states secret" act was applied in her case. What makes her case more unique than others in the past was that in the past it was usually applied after a case had already been started and was more specifically applied to a certain piece of evidence or reciting certain events where there would be a question of security of that set of evidence. The trial would either have to be conducted without that piece of evidence or pushed back for resolution to a lower court without that evidence. The problem is that in her case they sought to dismiss whole case before it was heard and basically mark *everything* about her as a state secret, instead of allowing a case to be heard and evidence be more selectively looked at.

The ACLU lawyer noted (as a previous article on their site noted), that it was ironic that the original case where the states secret privilege was used, that now the information is out with the freedom of information act 50 years later, that this act was misused since the original case using this wasn't applied to actually protect real states secrets, but to cover up negligence then. The lawyers want to make the case that what happened then in terms of using this for a coverup is likely happening now.

Also noted was that when this "privilege" was first created by the courts then, it was because other laws weren't in place to protect secret information. She notes that now there are such laws that apply to criminal cases making this privilege "not necessary", though perhaps the current laws could be ammended to also apply to civil cases as well as criminal cases. Sibel's case is a civil case, where the current more comprehensive and detailed set of security protection laws could perhaps be made to apply if the supremes make the current criminal protections available for civil cases. If that were to happen, then she might have a more workable way to at least be heard in court instead of arbitrarily be just "shut down" like she has been to this point.

[Just Me]

5. Wow! I can't believe I get to catch this!!!

:applause:

[Just Me]

7. She took an oath to protect the Constitution against enemies,...

,...both foreign and DOMESTIC (she added emphasis).

She has a strong appearance and voice of credibility.

[Just Me]

8. Ashcroft was bent upon blocking her testimony in several proceedings.

He basically rendered HER, everything about her, a "state secret" in order to gag the facts in her possession.

:wow:

[Just Me]

9. The appellate judges did a last minute prohibition on the presence,...

,...of the public or press without any cause asserted.

The judges then barred Sibel and her attorneys from being present during a "hearing" with the government lawyers.

:wow:

[Just Me]

10. The system intended to protect against abuses has been violated,...

,...repeatedly.

I'll bet she is incredibly disappointed at the experience she has had with our so-called democratic form of governance. ;( I know I am.

[cascadiance]

11. Help her get the word out now!

Need to help her get on most people's radar to help make sure that congress demands that she be heard by the Supremes and ends this nightmare for her and the rest of us!

Go here and pick up a button, a bumper sticker, a mug, etc. to help. Any profits will be put into her legal fund!

http://www.cafepress.com/sibel



Let's get out now and call our congress critters, etc. Does anyone know if this will be repeated again sometime today or tomorrow? I want to get this session recorded.

[Just Me]

12. Sibel's attorneys don't even know what is in the 50-page declaration,....

,...submitted by the feds. That's freakin' insane!!!

[FreedomAngel82]

16. Why would she have people like that??

[cascadiance]

18. The point was that they've not been allowed to see this document!

... not that they've ignored it.

Another note the lawyer made is that she herself (the lawyer) isn't cleared for hearing any of the secret information, and she hasn't had any of Sibel's secret information. She notes that the case should be able to be conducted without most of it being the fundamental issues and it wouldn't be something like she herself "accidentally" misstepping and giving out secret information, since she doesn't know this information anyway.

[Independent_Liberal]

14. I watched a little bit of this earlier.

I didn't get to see the whole thing. I saw the part with Edmonds speaking.