FOLLOW UP--Update to Smoking Gun Alert: DoD e-mails show plot...

[Up2Late]

I've finally finished going though all of the May 26, 2005 ACLU-FOIA documents that were released last week and have created a web page where I posted (as jpeg files) and Highlighted what I think are the most incriminating, un-redacted e-mails, messages, and investigative papers from the Thursday's FBI FOIA release. I'll post some of them below this post.

Most of what I've highlighted, I think, contradicts Lies told either in the MSM or in Congressional Testimony (another "High Crime"). If you have a link or remember an article or incident that these U.S. Government documents contradict, please post them, that would help a lot.

Here's the link: FBI_FOIAdocsMay26

All of these jpg files a captured directly from the pdf file, linked at the top of the page and below here. Make sure you save a copy to your hard drive, you never know when the on-line copy might "accidentally" get deleted by some government hacker.

I plan to post many of these clippings here, but if you find one particularly shocking and want to post it here, feel free. It's my page and bandwidth, and I think my bandwidth limit with Comcast is very High, if I have a limit, I don't know what it is.

As a reminder, here's last weeks post and links. <http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x1811545>

...files (available on-line click here)in connection with another legal action they are filing in New York Courts today. They are also available in pdf format.

Below is just one of the un-redacted e-mails they posted at their website, in connection to a new Press Release, which I posted in LBN at this link:

<http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1502372>

The link to the ACLU Press Release at their website is:

DETAINEES-2797B

E-mail (from CTD employee to Frankie Battle) noting that sender is forwarding this EC up the chain of command, concerning alleged impersonation of FBI Agents at GTMO


12/05/03

Same document as Detainee-2797 with the following unredacted: "Of concern, DOD interrogators impersonating Supervisory Special Agents of the FBI told a detainee that the FBI…" and "These tactics have produced no intelligence of a threat neutralization nature to date and CITF believes that techniques have destroyed any chance of prosecuting this detainee." and "If this detainee is ever released or his story made public in any way, DOD interrogators will not be held accountable because these torture techniques were done (by) the "FBI" interrogators. The FBI will (be) left holding the bag before the public."

[Up2Late]

1. This is one for all the PFC's and NCO's who are going to Prison...

...for following orders. As you will see, in this one it says "...Pagel advised he was aware of the allegations of abuse (at Abu Gareb)...it is his understanding that Gen. Sanchez is fully aware of the matter.

I'm fairly sure January 24, 2004 was before the torture Photos his the News Media.

[fooj]

2. "I will maintain this position unless instructed otherwise by FBIHQ."

CHECKMATE!!!

peace.

[Up2Late]

7. Here a reference (my the FBI) that I don't understand. Has anyone ...

...else ever heard of this interogation "techiquic?" Why does the the FBI find this so objectionable?



This was on page 90 of the pdf file.

[Up2Late]

8. I highlighted some of the most damaging parts of this one in...

...Thursdays post, but as I've learned, sometimes I see one thing, and someone else pulls out something else that I overlooked.
This one pretty much settles the, "Did * authorize Torture with his 'Executive Orders'" question. The answer is YES!



Page 2 (same e-mail or EC as they call it)

<>

[SpiralHawk]

15. Bush did AUTHORIZE the TORTURE...That is HUGE

I always suspected he did. The fish rots from the head on down.

Let's see the Executive Order. Or is that more "secret" information, like everything else in BushCo. Hey, you Republican bureaucrats, you work for us -- the people who pay you your checks -- we have a RIGHT to know what you are doing in our names.

[Up2Late]

10. This one, to me, looks like an informal Directive to "Play Dumb"

:hi:And Notice the "Subject" line, this IS the SAME EC (e-mail), that is still being kicked around, as the the January 24, 2004 EC, the one that says "...Gen. Sanchez is fully aware of the matter...!"

[Fridays Child]

3. Kick

:kick:

[Swamp Rat]

4. kick

[DemReadingDU]

5. Wow, thank you for going thru all the FOIA docs

We appreciate your time doing this, and posting for us.

Unfortunately, I think the big story will be the new book about Bill Clinton by John Harris, and Paris Hilton.

[Up2Late]

14. Yeah, No kidding, even Reuters is starting to fail us.

One: for not reporting this HUGE Story yet and,

Two: for letting this Paris Hilton story get into their "Top News" section on their website. This is not a good sign.

Paris Hilton engaged to Paris - People

Mon May 30, 2005 08:51 PM ET

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Ubiquitous socialite Paris Hilton is engaged to marry her boyfriend of five months, Greek shipping heir Paris Latsis, People magazine reported on its Web site on Monday. "They are happy and excited," Hilton's spokesman, Rob Shuter, was quoted as telling the magazine. It said that Latsis proposed last Wednesday and that no date has been set for the wedding.

This will be the first marriage for both. Hilton, 24, was beaten to the altar last August by her younger sister, Nicky, but the union was annulled after less than three months. Latsis is 27, according to People.

Paris Hilton, an heiress to the Hilton Hotel fortune, is a magnet for drama, whether inadvertently starring in a popular sex tape or having her electronic organizer stolen and its contents posted on the Internet. She currently co-stars in the movie "House of Wax," eliciting audience cheers when her character is killed off. She also features in a sexy TV commercial for a burger chain.

© Reuters 2005. All Rights Reserved.

[annabanana]

6. -so much dirt -

Thank you

[oxbow]

9. Media Blitz!

Wow. Just wow. I didn't known there was an executive order. I thought White House lawyers just decided Geneva conventions don't apply to these people. Good job and thank you for your work!

[Nothing Without Hope]

11. This is super-excellent. Hope you cross-posted at Kos.

I'll email Lara/Raw Story, C&L, Brad at BradBlog, and Digby at Hullaballoo about this important thread.

Very, very well done!

:thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

[Up2Late]

13. I just posted this and a link to DU at DKos, now we can see how they...

...treat newbies. It's my first post ever over there.

Here's the link:

<http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/5/31/182943/477>

I like it better here, the post formatting rules are very restrictive there.:evilgrin:

[Up2Late]

12. Here's the e-mail I'm sending to Amnesty International USA

(Feel free to use any and all of this e-mail to send to any organization that might be interested and could help get the word out, as long as this intent of the message isn't distorted. Also, let me know by posting what you sent at this thread.)

Dear Amnesty International USA,

I've just finished going though all of the May 26, 2005 ACLU-FOIA documents, that were released last week, and have created a web page where I posted (as jpeg files) and Highlighted what I think are the most incriminating of the un-redacted e-mails, messages, and investigative papers from the Thursday's FBI FOIA release. <http://www.aclu.org/SafeandFree/SafeandFree.cfm?ID=18336&c=206>
Here's the link to the web page I created:

FBI_FOIAdocsMay26

Most of what I've highlighted, I think, contradicts lies told either in the MSM or in Congressional Testimony (another "High Crime"). The ACLU May 26, 2005 Press Release, which this FOIA documents pdf file were attached to, has been either completely overlooked by or deliberately suppressed by the American and International main steam media (MSM).

This info is beginning to gain the attention of the on-line activist community though. I have posted this info to the on-line community message board called Democratic Underground .com <http://www.democraticunderground.com/> at the following links, and it was picked up by the website DailyKos .com. These posts contain a lot of additional information, I encourage all of you to go through these "Threads." I am listing them from newest to oldest and for you info, I post there as "Up2Late"

FOLLOW UP--Update to Smoking Gun Alert: DoD e-mails show plot...
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x1818834

Smoking Gun Alert: DoD e-mails show plot to blame FBI for Torture!
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x1811545

Defense Dept. Personnel Impersonated State Dept. Officials...(ACLU)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1502372

Please forward this e-mail and info to William F. Schulz , Karen Schneider , Gerald LeMelle, Jodi Longo, and anyone else who might be able to light a fire under this story. I hope your organization can help break the silence on these incriminating documents. This information could also help to counteract the the "Trash Talking" and dismissive language George W. Bush and his criminal administration has begun against your well respected organization.

Keep Fighting,

Signed

[Up2Late]

16. FINALLY! I just found the FIRST Magazine Article about this matter!

It's not a HUGE publication, it's a small LW, but long established Magazine call "The Progressive." I just posted this article to LBN!
On Edit: They just moved it to the Editorials and Other Articles forum:mad:

July 2005 issue of "The Progressive"

Stripping Rumsfeld and Bush of Impunity

by Matthew Rothschild

When Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee last year, he was asked whether he "ordered or approved the use of sleep deprivation, intimidation by guard dogs, excessive noise, and inducing fear as an interrogation method for a prisoner in Abu Ghraib prison." Sanchez, who was head of the Pentagon’s Combined Joint Task Force-7 in Iraq, swore the answer was no. Under oath, he told the Senators he "never approved any of those measures to be used."

But a document the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) obtained from the Pentagon flat out contradicts Sanchez’s testimony. It’s a memorandum entitled "CJTF-7 Interrogation and Counter-Resistance Policy," dated September 14, 2003. In it, Sanchez approved several methods designed for "significantly increasing the fear level in a detainee." These included "sleep management"; "yelling, loud music, and light control: used to create fear, disorient detainee, and prolong capture shock"; and "presence of military working dogs: exploits Arab fear of dogs." On March 30, the ACLU wrote a letter to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, urging him "to open an investigation into whether General Ricardo A. Sanchez committed perjury in his sworn testimony."

The problem is, Gonzales may himself have committed perjury in his Congressional testimony this January. According to a March 6 article in The New York Times, Gonzales submitted written testimony that said: "The policy of the United States is not to transfer individuals to countries where we believe they likely will be tortured, whether those individuals are being transferred from inside or outside the United States." He added that he was "not aware of anyone in the executive branch authorizing any transfer of a detainee in violation of that policy."

"That’s a clear, absolute lie," says Michael Ratner, executive director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, who is suing Administration officials for their involvement in the torture scandal. "The Administration has a policy of sending people to countries where there is a likelihood that they will be tortured."

(more at the link above)

[Nothing Without Hope]

17. Slate had a reasonable article at the end of December on earlier releases

It also discusses the evolving use of and experience with FOIA requests by organizations including the media as well as the ACLU. One of the links is the ACLU FOIA timeline up to that point, showing the stonewalling beaten back step by step:

http://www.aclu.org.nyud.net:8090/torturefoia/foia_timeline.gif

Here is an excerpt from the Dec 31, 2004 Slate story to give its flavor. Note that a number of links in the original are not kept in the excerpt.

http://slate.msn.com/id/2111638/fr/rss/

FOIA Eyes Only

The latest torture documents show the government still isn't coming clean.
By Eric Umansky
Posted Friday, Dec. 31, 2004, at 9:13 AM PT

Over the past month, the biggest scoops in the news business have come from ... an organization that's not in the news business. Using the Freedom of Information Act, the American Civil Liberties Union has uncovered thousands of government documents detailing torture of detainees in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay. One FBI memo about Gitmo cited "strangulation, beatings, placement of lit cigarettes into the detainees' ear openings, and unauthorized interrogations." It also repeatedly referred to a "cover-up."

(snip)

Consider the Washington Post's experience. After the Abu Ghraib scandal broke in the spring, the paper filed a series of wide-ranging FOIAs. Things seemed to go well at first. In August, the Army told the Post that it was ready to release documents. Then came word from the Pentagon that it had set up a "special committee" to "review" and "consolidate" detainee-related FOIAs. "We are still eagerly awaiting the results," said investigative reporter James Grimaldi, who adds, "I have never heard of such a committee before. A skeptical person might say that this was just a move to put off the day they have to release the papers."

Even the ACLU didn't hold out much hope for its FOIA request, made in October 2003. "There was disagreement about whether to even file," says Jameel Jaffer, an ACLU lawyer. "Some people thought we wouldn't be able to get a significant amount of information through FOIA and that it would be more effort than it was worth." Ultimately, he explained, they went ahead on the assumption that at best the government would release page after page of mostly blacked-out memos, which the ACLU could then turn into a nice press release.

(snip)

But even that has been just a partial victory. The Pentagon has held onto many documents—"There are far more documents that haven't been released than have," says the ACLU's Jaffer—and the CIA insists that it doesn't even need to confirm whether the requested documents exist, let alone release them. Even in the memos and e-mails that have been let loose, there's a generous use of whiteout. One series of e-mails from the Defense Department has the subject header, "re: potential torture involving Iraqi detainees." The whole thread adds up to four pages, and with the exception of the subject headers, all are now blank.

Does anyone doubt that the kind of judges being forced through confirmation by the Bush Administraton would have ruled to keep the torture information suppressed? It's utterly Orwellian - change the past and avoid accountability by denying that an issue ever existed. And lie, lie, lie.

The article you found in "The Progressive" is spectacular and should be widely shared. It's one more scandal on the heap that the corporate media are still suppressing this, as they are the Downing St Memo-related information.

[Up2Late]

25. CORRECTION: It's about Similar FOIA documents

But not exactly these. The author might be someone to contact and ask for another article.

[Nothing Without Hope]

18. The web site on the FOIA documents started by Susan at dKos is growing

and is a place to check if you are following this story closely. Also, scroll down for an extensive list of acronyms and abbreviations used in the documents.

The link:
http://tinyurl.com/acwbn

[Pryderi]

19. MSM Won't Run With It, and the General Population Doesn't Care

Secret executive orders for torture will just be "consigned to the dustbin of history".

This will just be considered yet another "Rathergate", and liberal/progressive dems will be painted as Henny Penny.

[Nothing Without Hope]

21. There HAS been progress. Getting these FOIA documents AT ALL is a

major accomplishment and there are many others. Watergate started from a tiny, stonewalled trickle and built slowly.

Don't be too downhearted about the silence so far. There are cracks in the dam, and when the breakthroughs finally come, there will be hell for the criminals in the Administration to pay.

[SheepyMcSheepster]

20. kick!

impressive.

keep up the good work.

that seems like no small task you have undertaken there.

thanks!

[Up2Late]

22. Just sent the same e-mail to Human Rights Watch as Am.Int.

As it was almost Identical to the Amnesty International e-mail, I won't repost it again.

[wicket]

23. great work!

:kick:

[Disturbed]

24. Excellent work.

Thanks. It's evidence upon more evidence that leads to indictements.

[ChiciB1]

26. Good JOB!!

Now I need to start reading ALL!

[Up2Late]

27. Here's my e-mail to Greg Palast (BBC News, Guardian, Harper's)

Greg Palast's reports for Britain's Guardian newspapers and Harper's Magazine can be found at www.GregPalast.com . Palast won this year's George Orwell Courage in Journalism award at the Sundance Freedom Cinema Festival for his investigations of the Bush family for BBC Television.

Subj.: May 26,2005 ACLU FBI FOIA documents show new evidence but no MSM coverage

Dear Greg:

I recently finished going through the FBI FOIA Documents released by the ACLU and have found in some of the un-redacted e-mails what could only be characterized as "Smoking Guns" that contradict public statements and Congressional testimony by Executive branch and DoD high ranking officials. Unfortunately, these very important FOIA documents are receiving Zero News coverage in the MSM here. We have spread the word among the on-line communities though, at Democratic Underground .com and DailyKos .com and have several people working on this.

I created a web page, at the link below, where you can see for yourself, and hopefully use the media resources at your disposal to help spread the word about these new, but over looked documents. Here's the link:

FBI_FOIAdocsMay26

Also, here are the discussion threads from Democratic Underground .com, The DailyKos web links are referenced within those posts if you're interested.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x1818834

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x1811545

If you don't feel comfortable reporting on this info, please forward this info to anyone you think might want to do a story on this subject.

Thanks,

Signed

[Up2Late]

28. UPDATE--NEW ACLU Press Release! Fed. Court Orders Government to Turn...

(This is a NEW ACLU Press Release, Which is related and the result referred to in the May 26, 2005 Press Release, which I posted about One Week ago. I heard about this during the NPR Hourly news update, If your favorite News source has nor reported this, you should send this to them and ask them to report it!)


A federal judge has ordered the Defense Department to turn over photographs and movies depicting detainee abuse at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq as part of an ongoing Freedom of Information Act lawsuit brought by the ACLU.

Federal Court Orders Government to Turn Over Videos and Photos Showing Detainee Abuse

June 2, 2005

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: [e-mail]

NEW YORK -- A federal judge has ordered the Defense Department to turn over dozens of photographs and four movies depicting detainee abuse at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq as part of an ongoing lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union.

"These images may be ugly and shocking, but they depict how the torture was more than the actions of a few rogue soldiers," said Anthony D. Romero, Executive Director of the ACLU. "The American public deserves to know what is being done in our name. Perhaps after these and other photos are forced into the light of day, the government will at long last appoint an outside special counsel to investigate the torture and abuse of detainees."

The court order came in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the ACLU, the New York Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Constitutional Rights to obtain documents and materials pertaining to the treatment of detainees held by American forces in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay.

Attorneys for the government had argued that turning over visual evidence of abuse would violate the United States’ obligations under the Geneva Conventions, but the ACLU said that obscuring the faces and identifiable features of the detainees would erase any potential privacy concerns. The court agreed.

"It is indeed ironic that the government invoked the Geneva Conventions as a basis for withholding these photographs," said Amrit Singh, a staff attorney at the ACLU. "Had the government genuinely adhered to its obligations under these Conventions, it could have prevented the widespread abuse of detainees held in its custody in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay."

The court order filed late yesterday requires the government by June 30 to reprocess and redact 144 detainee abuse photographs provided by Sergeant Joseph Darby to the Army’s Criminal Investigation Command. The order also requires the government to provide the court with an estimate of the length of time it will take to reprocess and redact four movies included as part of the Darby collection by June 10. The decision comes after the court privately viewed eight of the images from the Darby collection to determine whether the photographs should be released under the FOIA. The ACLU expects redacted versions of the photographs to be released within the next six weeks.

To date, more than 35,000 pages of documents have been released in response to the FOIA lawsuit. The ACLU has been posting these documents online at <http://www.aclu.org/torturefoia>.

The FOIA lawsuit is being handled by Lawrence Lustberg and Megan Lewis of the New Jersey-based law firm Gibbons, Del Deo, Dolan, Griffinger & Vecchione, P.C. Other attorneys in the case are Amrit Singh, Jameel Jaffer and Judy Rabinovitz of the ACLU; Arthur N. Eisenberg and Beth Haroules of the NYCLU; and Barbara Olshansky of the Center for Constitutional Rights.

The court order is available at:
<http://www.aclu.org/SafeandFree/SafeandFree.cfm?ID=18395&c=206>