CIA destroyed tapes despite court orders

Several issues involved here even though the opposite extremist ends of the political spectrum would desire that folks only paid attention to one issue or another or one very narrow view of an issue.

The Bush administration was under court order not to destroy videotapes of prisoner interrogations. Knowing they were forbidden to destroy those tapes, the Bush administration went ahead and destroyed them, anyway.

One has to ask, is this a "high crime" or "misdemeanor?" Is it an impeachable offense or, when taken together with other offenses committed by the Bush administration, is all of it "impeachable offenses?"

Is it scary that a President thinks he is above the law and entitled to make up his own laws as he goes along? Should America be concerned about this?

Is a President answerable to the law of the land?

There are also the debates over what constitutes torture and how to safeguard the secrecy of C.I.A. operations, something the Bush administration has clearly demonstrated little regard for when it suited their vengeful political purposes. Can they now hide behind the same protection they denied to a loyal C.I.A. operative and all she came into contact with as a part of her job?

Even if making public knowledge of the torture tactics used by the Bush regime was something that still required debating behind closed-to-the-public top secret doors, should not the evidence/issues to be debated have been preserved?

The Bush Derangement Syndrome suffered by the right-wing extremist zealots will have them scurrying like obedient little lemmings to defend any crime comitted by their leader. At this point, I truly do have to question their love for this country. How can they advocate for criminal behavior and dictatorship and say they love America? The truth is, they only love agenda and be damned to America and her laws... and her democracy.

FROM THE ARTICLE:

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration was under court order not to discard evidence of detainee torture and abuse months before the CIA destroyed videotapes that revealed some of its harshest interrogation tactics.

Normally, that would force the government to defend itself against obstruction allegations. But the CIA may have an out: its clandestine network of overseas prisons.

While judges focused on the detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and tried to guarantee that any evidence of detainee abuse would be preserved, the CIA was performing its toughest questioning half a world away. And by the time President Bush publicly acknowledged the secret prison system, interrogation videotapes of two terrorism suspects had been destroyed.

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100 Examples of GOP Corruption, Lies, and Ignorance

PART ONE

PART TWO

PART THREE

Biden To Bush: Bomb Iran And I'll Impeach

PORTSMOUTH — Presidential hopeful Delaware Sen. Joe Biden stated unequivocally that he will move to impeach President Bush if he bombs Iran without first gaining congressional approval.

Biden spoke in front of a crowd of approximately 100 at a candidate forum held Thursday at Seacoast Media Group. The forum focused on the Iraq war and foreign policy. When an audience member expressed fear of a war with Iran, Biden said he does not typically engage in threats, but had no qualms about issuing a direct warning to the Oval Office.

"The president has no authority to unilaterally attack Iran, and if he does, as Foreign Relations Committee chairman, I will move to impeach," said Biden, whose words were followed by a raucous applause from the local audience.

Biden said he is in the process of meeting with constitutional law experts to prepare a legal memorandum saying as much and intends to send it to the president.

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30 days to absolute tyranny

by Alex Wallenwein, July 26, 2007

Latest Bush Executive Order Outlaws Iraq War Dissent on Penalty of Full Asset Seizure

In an as yet un-numbered Executive Order (at least the number isn't published), president bush has decreed that your property - all of it - can be taken away at the sole discretion of the Secretary of the Treasury at the mere suspicion that you may commit a crime in the future. You can view and read this latest executive atrocity at the White House website.

An executive order only becomes law if Congress doesn’t overturn it within thirty days after it is published in the Federal Register.

If you own a business, this concerns you. Whether you own it as a sole proprietorship, as a sole shareholder, or even as a partial shareholder of a corporation, you stand to lose all of it if the Secretary thinks you may commit an "act of violence" that may disrupt the war (or peace) effort in Iraq. Naturally, "act of violence" is not defined anywhere in this order.

Once this becomes law, he has all the tools Hitler and Stalin had to keep their respective populations in utter subjection to their will.

The executive order states in Section 1(a) that “all property and interests in property” of “any person determined by the Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense, to have committed, or to pose a significant risk of committing, an act or acts of violence that have the purpose or effect of - blah, blah, blah (followed by a laundry list of “purposes or effects”).

This means that the triggering factor underlying any such blocking order is a mere “determination” by the Secretary of the Treasury that you pose a “significant risk” of committing an act of violence in the future that has any of the listed purposes or effects. All the Secretary then has to do is to “consult” with the secretaries of state and defense. There is not even a requirement that these two agree with the Treasury Secretary’s “determination”(!)

In other words, if the Secretary of the Treasury says that you “pose a significant risk” of committing an act of violence with the purpose or effect of “threatening the peace or stability of Iraq or the Government of Iraq; or undermining efforts to promote economic reconstruction and political reform in Iraq or to provide humanitarian assistance to the Iraqi people”, then the 'bushprez' can block you from accessing your bank account, retirement account, credit cards, or “any property or interest in property” that you may own.

That technically includes your house, whether owned or rented, your car or other means of transportation, whether owned or rented, your business, all the way down to your cell phone, toothpaste and underwear, as well as the twenty bucks you loaned your buddy that he hasn’t paid you back yet.

What is there to keep the Secretary of the Treasury from “determining” that you, because you oppose the war in Iraq, are probably one of those extremist hooligans who protested the WTO in Seattle a few years back, or that you are likely to act like one of them even though you haven’t even participated in those riots? War protesters do these things, don’t they? They are all the same, aren’t they?

If the Secretary “determines” that you probably are one of them and that you “pose a significant risk of committing” an act of violence intended to frustrate the war (or even the peace effort) in Iraq, all of your stuff can be taken away from you - or you can be “blocked” from accessing it, which pretty much amounts to the same thing.

You have no legal recourse under this order. No remedy at law. The order does not provide for compensation to you for the taking of your property. There is no due process requirement that will guarantee you a fair hearing in a court of law.

Unconstitutional? You bet!

But you can’t complain about it.

Why is that?

The president has declared a state of emergency back in 2003 (as he recites in this executive order at the end of the paragraph that starts with “I, GEORGE W. BUSH”). That state of emergency has not been rescinded, to this date.

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