BP Criminality Awarded Government Contracts

Abby cites the hypocrisy of the DOJ taking two years to call out BP even though they have been awarding them contracts ever since they caused the largest environmental crisis in the history of the world.

Rights Groups Denounce Dropping of CIA Torture Cases

AntiWar
Jim Lobe

U.S. human rights groups have roundly condemned Thursday’s announcement by Attorney General Eric Holder that the Justice Department will not pursue prosecutions of Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officers who may have been responsible for the deaths of two prisoners in their custody.

The announcement appeared to mark the end of all efforts by the U.S. government to hold CIA interrogators accountable for torture and mistreating prisoners detained during the so-called “Global War on Terror” launched shortly after the al-Qaeda attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.

For rights activists and for supporters of President Barack Obama, it was the latest in a series of disappointing decisions, including the failure to close the detention facility at the U.S. base in Guantanamo, Cuba. They had hoped Obama would not only end the excesses of President George W. Bush’s prosecution of the war, but also conduct a full investigation of those excesses, if not prosecute those responsible.

“This is truly a disastrous development,” said Laura Pitter, counterterrorism adviser at Human Rights Watch (HRW). “To now have no accountability whatsoever for any of the CIA abuses for which there are now mountains of evidence is just appalling.”

“It completely undermines the U.S.’s ability to have any credibility on any of these issues in other countries, even as it calls for other countries to account for abuses and prosecute cases of torture and mistreatment,” she told IPS.

“Continuing impunity threatens to undermine the universally recognized prohibition on torture and other abusive treatment and sends the dangerous signal to government officials that there will be no consequences for their use of torture and other cruelty,” noted Jameel Jaffer, deputy legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

“Today’s decision not to file charges against individuals who tortured prisoners to death is yet another entry in what is already a shameful record.”

In his announcement, Holder suggested that crimes were indeed committed in the two cases that were being investigated by Assistant U.S. Attorney John Durham but that convictions were unlikely.

“Based on the fully developed factual record concerning the two deaths, the department has declined prosecution because the admissible evidence would not be sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction beyond a reasonable doubt,” he said.

The two deaths took place at a secret CIA detention facility known as the Salt Pit in Afghanistan in 2002 and at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison the following year. The victims have been identified as Gul Rahman, a suspected Taliban militant, and Manadel Al-Jamadi, an alleged Iraqi insurgent.

The two were the last reviewed by Durham, who had originally been tasked by Bush’s attorney general, Michael Mukasey, in 2008 with conducting a criminal investigation into CIA interrogators’ use of “waterboarding” against detainees and the apparently intentional destruction of interrogation videotapes that recorded those sessions.

In August 2009, Holder expanded Durham’s mandate to include 101 cases of alleged mistreatment by CIA interrogators of detainees held abroad to determine whether any of them may be liable to prosecution.

At the time, he also stressed that he would not prosecute anyone who acted in good faith and within the scope of the controversial legal guidance given by the Bush administration regarding possible “enhanced interrogation” techniques that could be used against detainees.

Such techniques, which include waterboarding, the use of stress positions and extreme heat and cold, are widely considered torture by human rights groups and international legal experts. As such, they violate the U.N. Convention Against Torture (CAT), as well as the Geneva Conventions and a 1996 U.S. federal law against torture.

Holder’s position was consistent with Obama’s statement, which human rights groups also strongly criticized, shortly after taking office in 2009 that he did not want CIA officials to “suddenly feel like they’ve got to spend all their time looking over their shoulders and lawyering” to escape prosecution and that he preferred “to look forward as opposed to…backwards.”

In his first days in office, Obama ordered all secret CIA detention facilities closed and banned the enhanced techniques authorized by his predecessor.

In late 2010, Durham announced that he would not pursue criminal charges related to the destruction of the CIA videotapes. Seven months later, he recommended that, of the 101 cases of alleged CIA abuse referred to him, only two warranted full criminal investigations in which CIA officers had allegedly exceeded the Bush administration’s guidelines for permissible interrogation techniques.

Now that Holder and Durham have concluded that prosecutions of the individuals involved are unlikely to result in convictions, it appears certain that no CIA officer will be prosecuted in a U.S. jurisdiction. Prosecutions of Bush officials responsible for authorizing the “enhanced interrogation” techniques have also been ruled out.

In 2006, a private contractor for the CIA was successfully prosecuted and sentenced to six years in prison for beating an Afghan detainee to death three years before.

Some commentators suggested that these decisions, including the dropping of the two remaining cases, have been motivated primarily by political considerations. Indeed, HRW director Kenneth Roth wrote in an op-ed last year that “dredging up the crimes of the previous administration was seen as too distracting and too antagonistic an enterprise when Republican votes were needed.”

In a statement Thursday, the Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee praised Holder’s decision. Republicans protested Holder’s referral of the 101 cases to Durham in 2009.

But rights activists expressed great frustration. Holder’s announcement “is disappointing because it’s well documented that in the aftermath of 9/11, torture and abuse were widespread and systematic,” said Melina Milazzo of Human Rights First (HRF), which has been one of the most aggressive groups in investigating and publicizing torture and abuse by U.S. intelligence and military personnel.

“It’s shocking that the department’s review of hundreds of instances of torture and abuse will fail to hold even one person accountable.”

Similarly, the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) noted that Holder’s announcement “belies U.S. claims that it can be trusted to hold accountable Americans who have perpetrated torture and other human rights abuses.”

It said the decision “underscores the need for independent investigations elsewhere, such as the investigation in Spain, to continue.” Victims and rights groups including CCR filed criminal complaints against former Bush officials in Spanish courts in 2009, launching two separate investigations by judges there.

Justice Department launches ad campaign

The Examiner

For the first time in the history of the agency, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has launched an ad campaign featuring a sitting attorney general speaking to Americans about the need to protect endangered children.

This reporter saw the ad for the first time last evening.

The series of ads comes at a curious time in American politics. The U.S. presidential election is less than three months away. The DOJ is under intense fire due to the Fast and Furious scandal. The Office of the Inspector General (OIG) of the DOJ issued his first draft report on Fast and Furious this week, and leaks from DOJ indicate that already the report has created a flurry of activity as officials scurry about attempting damage control.

DOJ officials have one month to pour over the OIG report, providing their feedback, prior to its release to Congress, the media, and the public.

Yet as if to get a head start and gain the upper hand in the court of public opinion, Holder launches a massive ad campaign touting the agency's work and focusing on the need to "protect the children."

No one would argue that vulnerable children do not need to be protected. But why is this suddenly the focus of an ad campaign during an election year? Is there some reason that now is the time to step up such efforts? Are there statistics showing that suddenly, out of the blue, multimillions more children are now in harm's way within, say, the last six months?

In all likelihood, children are in no more danger now than they have been at any other time during the Obama presidency.

The thing that has changed, however, is the president's likelihood of being reelected. National opinion polls are skewed toward Democrats and are thus unreliable. Americans in the heartland and in the small towns and cities that dot the landscape all across the nation know in their hearts that this president has failed to deliver on his promises. He did not, as he promised, lower unemployment below 8 percent. He did not, as he promised, fix the economy. He did not, as he promised, make sure that the elderly will be secured in the national safety net for decades to come. Instead, he robbed the Medicare program of nearly 800 billion dollars in order to fund ObamaCare, placing the Medicare program in a highly vulnerable position going forward.

In addition, the president faces a Republican ticket that headed out of Tampa in a very strong position. Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan did what they had to do to define themselves and their positions on the issues. Nothing at the Republican Convention gave the impression that this team is not ready on day one to begin to clean up the mess that Obama has made worse.

Thus, the only explanation for the DOJ ads is that they are part of the Obama reelection campaign without identifying themselves as such. And the taxpayers are footing the bill.

ALERT!

A new entry in my regular series Musings After Midnight is now posted at my blog, The Liberty Sphere. It's titled "With All of THIS Going On, It's Enough to Make a Normal Person Become a Conspiracy Theorist." Don't miss it!

'Fast and Furious' ATF Official Granted Paid Leave to Take 6-Figure Job at JP Morgan

CNS News
Susan Jones

The long-awaited inspector general's report on the Justice Department's botched gun-running scheme is finished, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) said on Wednesday.

But along with that news comes more questions: Issa and Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) are demanding to know why a top ATF official involved in Operation Fast and Furious remains on paid leave from ATF -- while simultaneously drawing a six-figure salary from J.P. Morgan, a major investment bank.

In a letter to the acting head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Issa and Grassley asked why the Justice Department would approve such a special arrangement for Bill McMahon.

(Pardon the goofy player)

“Under any reading of the relevant personnel regulations, it appears that ATF management was under no obligation to approve this sort of arrangement,” wrote Issa and Grassley. “Given McMahon’s outsized role in the Fast and Furious scandal, the decision to approve an extended annual leave arrangement in order to attain pension eligibility and facilitate full-time, outside employment while still collecting a full-time salary at ATF raises a host of questions about both the propriety of the arrangement and the judgment of ATF management.” Issa and Grassley say the ATF has made it possible for McMahon to "double dip for nearly half a year by receiving two full-time paychecks -- one from the taxpayer and one from the private sector."  They noted that the treatment of McMahon is "in sharp contrast" to how the ATF has treated whistleblowers such as Special Agent John Dodson, "who is told he must wait until the Inspector General’s report is complete before the agency will even consider his simple request for a statement retracting the false statements made about him by agency leadership.” Issa and Grassley noted that ATF approved the arrangement for McMahom before the Justice Department inspector general finished his report on the failed gun tracking scheme.

 As for the IG report examining Fast and Furious, as well as the Justice Department's knowledge of and response to it, Issa said the report is done: "We know that the IG report is finished, we know that it's at Justice, and we know that we can't see it. We're hoping, though, that they will release it," Issa told Fox News's Greta Van Susteren on Wednesday. Issa said he's "positive" that the IG's report "is going to say the same thing our report has said, which is -- this is somebody (Bill McMahon) who is responsible for and signed documents that he told our committee he didn't see, didn't know about. Now, the only question is -- did he not read them and sign them?" "We're dealing with somebody who should have been fired from ATF," Issa added. According to the final congressional report on Fast and Furious, William McMahon was a supervisor at ATF headquarters who served as a "crucial link" between ATF headquarters and the Phoenix Field Division. "He received a wealth of information about Fast and Furious” -- including the fact that straw purchasers had bought over 900 firearms, many of which ended up in Mexico -- "but did not view it as his role as supervisor to ask questions about events in the field. He has publicly admitted to having failed in his duty to read information presented to him about the case."

The report says McMahon rubber stamped critical documents that came across his desk without reading them. McMahon also "gave false testimony to Congress about signing applications for wiretap intercepts in Fast and Furious," the report says.  Operation Fast and Furious began in the fall of 2009 as part of a plan to track guns illegally purchased in the U.S. to Mexican drug cartels. The ATF lost track of most of the 2,000 weapons that were allowed to "walk" into Mexico, and two of the straw-purchased guns ended up at the scene of a U.S. border agent's murder. (Issa told Fox News that news of McMahon's double-dipping will produce "more outrage for the family of fallen Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.) According to the final congressional report, "From the outset, the case was marred by missteps, poor judgments, and an inherently reckless strategy." Issa, who chairs the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, has accused Attorney General Eric Holder and other Justice Department officials of undermining his investigation into Fast and Furious.

CNBC Owned Trying To Defend Non-Prosecution Of Goldman Sachs

Editor's Note:  Hmm.  Could this explain the lack of will to prosecute?

Insight: Top Justice officials connected to mortgage banks

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and Lanny Breuer, head of the Justice Department's criminal division, were partners for years at a Washington law firm that represented a Who's Who of big banks and other companies at the center of alleged foreclosure fraud, a Reuters inquiry shows.

Alexander Higgins
Daily Bell

So let me get this straight. The Goldman Sachs Dept. of Justice failed to seriously investigate massive financial fraud at Goldman Sachs.

Sounds about right.

William Black decimates CNBC's money-honey.

"FBI agents were never even assigned to investigate the case. Was a Grand Jury even convened?" Wow. Watch this all the way to the end, as Maria tries to shut down Black and mistakenly calls the DOJ 'the defense department', not referring to the military but rather a department of justice filled with criminal defense attorneys instead of prosecutors. She went to the core of the issue at Eric Holder's DOJ aka Dept. of Criminal Defense Attorneys Masquerading as Prosecutors, and didn't even realize it. This mis-step into the Orwellian zone is both frightening and sickening.

Geithner Admits He Hid LIBOR Fraud From The DOJ

Alexander Higgins Blog

Secretary of Treasury Tim Geithner is forced to admit under oath that he did NOT inform the DOJ even though he was aware of specific cases of fraud.

Decent clip. More from Geithner’s Libor testimony July 25.

You can just skip to the 4-minute mark and watch the last 2 minutes. After considerable effort, Miller gets Geithner to admit that he ‘did NOT inform the DOJ of anything even though he was aware of specific cases of fraud involving LIBOR manipulation.’

Insight: Top Justice officials connected to mortgage banks

Reuters

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and Lanny Breuer, head of the Justice Department's criminal division, were partners for years at a Washington law firm that represented a Who's Who of big banks and other companies at the center of alleged foreclosure fraud, a Reuters inquiry shows.

The firm, Covington & Burling, is one of Washington's biggest white shoe law firms. Law professors and other federal ethics experts said that federal conflict of interest rules required Holder and Breuer to recuse themselves from any Justice Department decisions relating to law firm clients they personally had done work for.

Both the Justice Department and Covington declined to say if either official had personally worked on matters for the big mortgage industry clients. Justice Department spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler said Holder and Breuer had complied fully with conflict of interest regulations, but she declined to say if they had recused themselves from any matters related to the former clients.

Reuters reported in December that under Holder and Breuer, the Justice Department hasn't brought any criminal cases against big banks or other companies involved in mortgage servicing, even though copious evidence has surfaced of apparent criminal violations in foreclosure cases.

The evidence, including records from federal and state courts and local clerks' offices around the country, shows widespread forgery, perjury, obstruction of justice, and illegal foreclosures on the homes of thousands of active-duty military personnel.

In recent weeks the Justice Department has come under renewed pressure from members of Congress, state and local officials and homeowners' lawyers to open a wide-ranging criminal investigation of mortgage servicers, the biggest of which have been Covington clients. So far Justice officials haven't responded publicly to any of the requests.

While Holder and Breuer were partners at Covington, the firm's clients included the four largest U.S. banks - Bank of America, Citigroup, JP Morgan Chase and Wells Fargo & Co - as well as at least one other bank that is among the 10 largest mortgage servicers.

DEFENDER OF FREDDIE

Servicers perform routine mortgage maintenance tasks, including filing foreclosures, on behalf of mortgage owners, usually groups of investors who bought mortgage-backed securities.

Covington represented Freddie Mac, one of the nation's biggest issuers of mortgage backed securities, in enforcement investigations by federal financial regulators.

A particular concern by those pressing for an investigation is Covington's involvement with Virginia-based MERS Corp, which runs a vast computerized registry of mortgages. Little known before the mortgage crisis hit, MERS, which stands for Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, has been at the center of complaints about false or erroneous mortgage documents.

Court records show that Covington, in the late 1990s, provided legal opinion letters needed to create MERS on behalf of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase and several other large banks. It was meant to speed up registration and transfers of mortgages. By 2010, MERS claimed to own about half of all mortgages in the U.S. -- roughly 60 million loans.

But evidence in numerous state and federal court cases around the country has shown that MERS authorized thousands of bank employees to sign their names as MERS officials. The banks allegedly drew up fake mortgage assignments, making it appear falsely that they had standing to file foreclosures, and then had their own employees sign the documents as MERS "vice presidents" or "assistant secretaries."

CREW calls on Holder to release secret drone strike memo

RawStory
Eric W. Dolan

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) and other groups on Monday called on U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to release a memo that provided legal justification for the killing of American terror suspects overseas.

“By withholding this memo, DOJ seems to be trying to evade the accountability that stems from transparency,” said CREW Executive Director Melanie Sloan. “Insisting that the memo remain secret is all the more surprising given President Obama’s stated commitment to an open government.”

Drones operated by the U.S. reportedly killed al Qaeda operatives Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Kahn last year in Yemen. Both men were U.S. citizens. Awlaki’s 16-year-old son, who was born in Colorado, was reportedly killed by a drone strike about two weeks later.

Despite an executive order banning assassinations, the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) had issued a legal memorandum justifying the targeted killing of al-Awlaki if it was not feasible to capture him. The Justice Department has so far ignored requests by members of Congress and others to publicly disclose the memo.

“Americans shouldn’t be kept in the dark when the U.S. government authorizes the targeted killing of one of its own citizens on foreign soil,” continued Sloan. “Further, the memo’s existence is about as secret as the drone program or Stuxnet. As with the torture memos, insisting on secrecy is ridiculous and counterproductive.”

In March, Holder defended the use of drone strikes against American terror suspects without specifically mentioning Awlaki, giving some clues as to what might be in the legal memo.

“The principle of necessity requires that the target have definite military value,” he explained. “The principle of distinction requires that only lawful targets – such as combatants, civilians directly participating in hostilities, and military objectives – may be targeted intentionally. Under the principle of proportionality, the anticipated collateral damage must not be excessive in relation to the anticipated military advantage. Finally, the principle of humanity requires us to use weapons that will not inflict unnecessary suffering.”

Eric Holder warns of ‘constitutional crisis’

Politico
Tim Mack
Josh Gersten

Under threat of a House contempt citation over the botched Fast and Furious gun-walking operation, Attorney General Eric Holder spoke in a conciliatory tone Tuesday about his willingness for “compromises” to avoid what he called “an impending constitutional crisis” over the withholding of documents in response to a congressional subpoena.

“We are prepared to make – I am prepared to make - compromises with regard to the documents that can be made available,” said Holder in a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

“I want to make it very clear that I am offering – I myself – to sit down with the Speaker, the chairman, with you, whoever, to try and work our way through this in an attempt to avoid a constitutional crisis, and come up with ways, creative ways, in which to make this material available. But I’ve got to have a willing partner. I’ve extended my hand, and I’m waiting to hear back,” he added in response to a question about the subpoenaed documents posed by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa.)

Holder’s remarks were his most aggressive public offer yet to wheel and deal with Congress to head off a dramatic contempt showdown — Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) has scheduled a vote on the citation for June 20 in his committee.

After using the phrase “constitutional crisis” at least three times, Holder noted two hours into the hearingthat “constitutional conflict” might be a better term.

At issue between Republicans and Democrats are the withholding of Justice Department documents in response to a Congressional subpoena. The DOJ claims that previous administrations have reserved the right to withhold deliberative documents.

“There is a basis for the withholding of these documents… the tradition has always been, by members of the Justice Department, whether they were Republicans or Democrats, to withhold deliberative material,” argued Holder. “We have reached out to Chairman Issa, members of the leadership on the House side, to try to work our way through these issues.”

One possible area of compromise appeared to be the issue of wiretap applications related to Fast and Furious that are confidential because they are under a court-ordered seal.

“Will you seek the court’s permission to release the affidavit so that people can read them… and if there’s any problem with something sensitive, could the judge make a decision to remove any truly sensitive information before release?” asked Grassley.

House GOP still mulling Holder contempt

Politico
John Bresnahan

House Republicans are not ready to proceed with a contempt citation against Attorney General Eric Holder over the Fast and Furious scandal, but there are clear signals that that GOP patience with the Justice Department is wearing thin.

The Los Angeles Times reported on Thursday night that Speaker John Boehner had “given the green light” to Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, to pursue a contempt citation against Holder and the Justice Department for failing to comply with the panel’s probe into the hugely controversial program.

But GOP leadership aides and the Oversight and Government Reform Committee say no decision has been made to take such a dramatic step. They acknowledge, however, the possibility of bringing contempt proceedings has been discussed in leadership sessions.

“While there are very legitimate arguments to be made in favor of such an action, no decision has been made to move forward with one by the Speaker or by House Republican leaders,” a senior GOP leadership aide said.
“The Justice Department has not fully cooperated with the investigation into gunwalking that occurred in Operation Fast and Furious. The House Oversight Committee continues to make necessary preparations to hold Attorney General Holder in contempt if the Justice Department refuses to change course and stop blocking access to critical documents,” a spokesman for Issa added.

Privacy v. Public Access in the Emerald City

citmedialaw
Bryce Newell

For the past few years here in Seattle, a fascinating debate has been brewing about the balance between government transparency and citizens' privacy, particularly at the intersection of the state Public Records Act and the state Privacy Act.

The current controversy involves a lawsuit for declaratory relief filed in January by the City of Seattle against local attorney James Egan, after he submitted a public records request for 36 Seattle Police Department dash-cam videos (see the complaint here).  Egan requested the videos from the SPD under the Washington Public Records Act in relation to his representation of clients with misconduct claims against the police. (Egan has publicly posted prior videos that he received from the SPD under earlier Public Records Act.  The 36 videos at issue in the new request don’t necessarily relate to police interactions with Egan’s clients, but rather to the officers involved in the earlier incidents.)

The city refused to produce the videos, citing a potential conflict with the state’s Privacy Act and the department's concerns over potential liability for turning over videos that might violate the privacy of the individuals depicted in the footage. Days later, Egan filed a second request for the video footage, this time requesting the visual footage only, without audio, which was also rejected.  He has also moved to strike the City’s claims under the state anti-SLAPP statute.

This whole controversy is especially interesting to me as a researcher interested in government transparency and as a supporter of proper policing.  A close reading of the statutes at issue is enlightening.

Washington's Public Records Act heavily favors public disclosure, but City Attorney Pete Holmes is concerned that one provision of the Privacy Act, RCW 9.73.090(1)(c), limits the city’s ability to disclose the videos to anyone except the individuals involved in the recorded incidents.  (Holmes recently posted his thoughtful take on the issues here, and I applaud his willingness to discuss the matter publicly.)  The provision of the Privacy Act that most concerns the city reads in part:

No sound or video recording made under this subsection [which allows police to record dash-cam video] may be duplicated and made available to the public by a law enforcement agency subject to this section until final disposition of any criminal or civil litigation which arises from the event or events which were recorded. (emphasis added)

The city also claims that the Privacy Act allows them to keep the dash-cam videos sealed from the public for three years.  Reportedly, this is also the timeframe for when Egan says the videos are "slated for deletion" from the SPD’s electronic video system.  If true and the Privacy Act does bar the SPD from releasing the videos, it would appear that SPD dash-cam videos would be effectively exempted from public records requests in the future.

Department of Justice Misdirection on Cloud Computing and Privacy

Electronic Frontier Foundation
Cindy Cohn and Katitza Rodriguez

Does using cloud computing services based in the United States create a risk of US law enforcement access to people's data? The US Department of Justice (DOJ) seems to be trying to placate international concern by saying one thing in international fora; but it says something quite different in the US courts.

On January 18, a senior Justice Department official tried to reassure companies and people around the world that hosting their data in the United States creates no increased privacy risk for them from the US government. Deputy Assistant Attorney General Bruce Swartz noted: "Cloud computing has important advantages to consumers (but) doesn't present any issues that have not always been present. Certainly not regarding Internet service issues, but even before that."

Apparently, the DOJ is reacting to decisions by foreign entities to drop US-based services due to concerns about US government access, including British company BAE dropping Microsoft Office 365 and the Dutch government's hesitation about allowing its contractors to use US-based cloud services. In the past, Denmark and Canada have also voiced their concerns about the level of protection the United States can provide to their citizens’ data. EU public tenders of cloud services are also avoiding US cloud services for the same reasons. European-based companies, which have to comply with EU data protection law, see this opportunity as a competitive advantage, as do Australian cloud services.

Yet the DOJ's reassurances ring hollow. While the DOJ may spin its position one way to try to appease foreign audiences, its actual position is quite clear where it really matters: in US courts when it is trying to access subscriber information held by US-based cloud computing services. Indeed, the DOJ's position in its court filings is that very little, if any, privacy protection is available against US government access to the records of users of US-based cloud computing services.

EFF’s recent high-profile case involving DOJ access to Twitter customer records as part of the Wikileaks investigation demonstrates this. There, the DOJ has been unequivocal that cloud users have no right to challenge government access to the tremendous amount of "non-content" information held by these systems -- their location, their contacts, their communications patterns and more. In November 2011, the court agreed, holding that the Twitter users could not challenge the request for their information under the Stored Communications Act or under the constitution, chiefly on the grounds that having "given" their IP address and other information to Twitter in the US, they had no further privacy interest[1]. The DOJ also stated that it has strong doubts about whether foreign users of US-based cloud services had any constitutional privacy rights at all.

More Police Brutality in Seattle

FreeThoughtBlogs

Only a week after the DOJ released a report that found Seattle police officers were guilty of misconduct in 20% of all uses of force by the department comes this story, where an officer allegedly got so out of line that the man he had pulled over called 911 to make sure he was a real cop.

A local man called the cops on Seattle officers when he felt a traffic stop was spinning out of control – and the entire incident was captured on a police video that shows the man being yanked from his car and thrown to the ground…

The video shows Seattle police pulling a car over for speeding, then one officer walking up to the driver who was pulled over.

Although the dashboard camera captured the incident, the officer did not wear his microphone – a violation of department policy.

Once stopped, the driver, Amanuel Gebreselassie, says the talk went bad from the beginning.

“He’s using profanity. He’s not acting professional. He’s just not acting like an officer,” says Gebreselassie.

In their report, police said the driver was “extremely verbally aggressive.” But Gebreselassie denies it – and says the stop seemed so out of line, he called 911.
An audiotape of the 911 call recorded the conversation between Gebreselassie and the 911 dispatcher.

“911. What are you reporting?” the dispatcher says.

“Uhh, an illegal stop by an officer – you know, I just want to make sure he’s a real officer. … There’s an officer here, but he’s talking crazy to me, and I’m not really dealing with this guy.”

The conversation was cut short when a group of officers returned to the car.
“Get out of the car,” one officer can be heard saying on the 911 tape.

“For what?”

“Get out of the car, man.”

Police say Gebresellassie resisted, so they yanked him to the ground.

In the video, one officer appears to deliver a sharp kick – but it’s unclear where it lands.

The officers then performed an illegal search of the car. The department reprimanded three officers for the illegal search but did nothing about the violence inflicted on the man. Balko suggests a perfectly reasonable policy:

I propose a rule for cases like these: Any time a police officer inappropriately turns off his dash cam, turns off his uniform microphone, or illegally confiscates other audio or video of an incident which then ends up missing or destroyed, the courts will begin considering any disputed facts about the incident with a presumption that the citizen’s account is the correct one.

I couldn’t agree more.

Congress issues subpoena for Holder, others in 'Fast and Furious' probe

CNN

Congressional investigators have issued a subpoena for communications from several top Justice Department officials - including Attorney General Eric Holder - relating to the discredited "Fast and Furious" federal gunrunning operation, according to Rep. Darrell Issa, R-California.

Operation Fast and Furious involved agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives allowing illegal sales of guns believed to be destined for Mexican drug cartels to "walk" from Phoenix, Arizona, gun stores into Mexico.

The idea was to track the sellers and purchasers of guns to Mexican cartels, but the program became mired in controversy after weapons found at Mexican and American murder scenes were traced back to the program. Mexican officials and critics in the United States called the program a failure, saying it exacerbated the longstanding problem of U.S. weapons getting into the hands of the violent Mexican cartels.

As America's Economy Collapses, "New Normal" Police State Takes Shape

Global Research
Tom Burghardt

Antifascist Calling...

Forget your rights.

As corporate overlords position themselves to seize what little remains of a tattered social net (adieu Medicare and Medicaid! Social Security? Au revoir!), the Obama administration is moving at break-neck speed to expand police state programs first stood-up by the Bush government.

After all, with world share prices gyrating wildly, employment and wages in a death spiral, and retirement funds and publicly-owned assets swallowed whole by speculators and renter scum, the state better dust-off contingency plans lest the Greek, Spanish or British "contagion" spread beyond the fabled shores of "old Europe" and infect God-fearin' folk here in the heimat.

Fear not, they have and the lyrically-titled Civil Disturbances: Emergency Employment of Army and Other Resources, otherwise known as Army Regulation 500-50, spells out the "responsibilities, policy, and guidance for the Department of the Army in planning and operations involving the use of Army resources in the control of actual or anticipated civil disturbances." (emphasis added)

With British politicians demanding a clampdown on social media in the wake of London riots, and with the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) agency having done so last week in San Francisco, switching off underground cell phone service to help squelch a protest against police violence, authoritarian control tactics, aping those deployed in Egypt and Tunisia (that worked out well!) are becoming the norm in so-called "Western democracies."

Secret Law, Secret Programs

Meanwhile up on Capitol Hill, Congress did their part to defend us from that pesky Bill of Rights; that is, before 81 of them--nearly a fifth of "our" elected representatives--checked-out for AIPAC-funded junkets to Israel.

Secrecy News reported that the Senate Intelligence Committee "rejected an amendment that would have required the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence to confront the problem of 'secret law,' by which government agencies rely on legal authorities that are unknown or misunderstood by the public."

That amendment, proposed by Senators Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Mark Udall (D-CO) was rejected by voice vote, further entrenching unprecedented surveillance powers of Executive Branch agencies such as the FBI and NSA.

As Antifascist Calling previously reported, the Electronic Frontier Foundation filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the Justice Department "demanding the release of a secret legal memo used to justify FBI access to Americans' telephone records without any legal process or oversight."

The DOJ refused and it now appears that the Senate has affirmed that "secret law" should be guiding principles of our former republic.

Secrecy News also disclosed that the Committee rejected a second amendment to the authorization bill, one that would have required the Justice Department's Inspector General "to estimate the number of Americans who have had the contents of their communications reviewed in violation of the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 [FAA]."

As pointed out here many times, FAA is a pernicious piece of Bushist legislative detritus that legalized the previous administration's secret spy programs since embellished by our current "hope and change" president.

During the run-up to FAA's passage, congressional Democrats, including then-Senator Barack Obama and his Republican colleagues across the aisle, claimed that the law would "strike a balance" between Americans' privacy rights and the needs of security agencies to "stop terrorists" attacking the country.

If that's the case, then why can't the American people learn whether their rights have been compromised?

Perhaps, as recent reports in Truthout and other publications suggest, former U.S. counterterrorism "czar" Richard Clarke leveled "explosive allegations against three former top CIA officials--George Tenet, Cofer Black and Richard Blee--accusing them of knowingly withholding intelligence ... about two of the 9/11 hijackers who had entered the United States more than a year before the attacks."

Clarke's allegations follow closely on the heels of an investigation by Truthout journalists Jeffrey Kaye and Jason Leopold.

"Based on on documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act and an interview with a former high-ranking counterterrorism official," Kaye and Leopold learned that "a little-known military intelligence unit, unbeknownst to the various investigative bodies probing the terrorist attacks, was ordered by senior government officials to stop tracking Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda's movements prior to 9/11."

As readers are well aware, the 9/11 provocation was the pretext used by the capitalist state to wage aggressive resource wars abroad while ramming through repressive legislation like the USA Patriot Act and the FISA Amendments Act that targeted the democratic rights of the American people here at home.

But FAA did more then legitimate illegal programs. It also handed retroactive immunity and economic cover to giant telecoms like AT&T and Verizon who profited handily from government surveillance, shielding them from monetary damages which may have resulted from a spate of lawsuits such as Hepting v. AT&T.

This raises the question: are other U.S. firms similarly shielded from scrutiny by secret annexes in FAA or the privacy-killing USA Patriot Act?

Echelon Cubed

Last week, Softpedia revealed that "Google has admitted complying with requests from US intelligence agencies for data stored in its European data centers, most likely in violation of European Union data protection laws."

"At the center of this problem," reporter Lucian Constantin wrote, "is the USA PATRIOT ACT, which states that companies incorporated in the United States must hand over data administered by their foreign subsidiaries if requested."

"Not only that," the publication averred, "they can be forced to keep quiet about it in order to avoid exposing active investigations and alert those targeted by the probes."

In other words, despite strict privacy laws that require companies operating within the EU to protect the personal data of their citizens, reports suggest that U.S. firms, operating under an entirely different legal framework, U.S. spy laws with built-in secrecy clauses and gag orders, trump the laws and legal norms of other nations.

Given the widespread corporate espionage carried out by the National Security Agency's decades-long Echelon communications' intercept program, American firms such as Google, Microsoft, Apple or Amazon may very well have become witting accomplices of U.S. secret state agencies rummaging about for "actionable intelligence" on EU, or U.S., citizens.

Indeed, a decade ago the European Union issued its final report on the Echelon spying machine and concluded that the program was being used for corporate and industrial espionage and that data filched from EU firms was being turned over to American corporations.

In 2000, the BBC reported that according to European investigators "U.S. Department of Commerce 'success stories' could be attributed to the filtering powers of Echelon."

Duncan Campbell, a British journalist and intelligence expert, who along with New Zealand journalist Nicky Hager, helped blow the lid off Echelon, offered two instances of U.S. corporate spying in the 1990s when the newly-elected Clinton administration followed-up on promises of "aggressive advocacy" on behalf of U.S. firms "bidding for foreign contracts."

According to Campbell, NSA "lifted all the faxes and phone-calls between Airbus, the Saudi national airline and the Saudi Government" to gain this information. In a second case which came to light, Campbell documented how "Raytheon used information picked up from NSA snooping to secure a $1.4bn contract to supply a radar system to Brazil instead of France's Thomson-CSF."

As Softpedia reported, U.S.-based cloud computing services operating overseas have placed "European companies and government agencies that are using their services ... in a tough position."

With the advent of fiber optic communication platforms, programs like Echelon have a far greater, and more insidious, reach. AT&T whistleblower Mark Klein noted on the widespread deployment by NSA of fiber optic splitters and secret rooms at American telecommunications' firms:

What screams out at you when examining this physical arrangement is that the NSA was vacuuming up everything flowing in the Internet stream: e-mail, web browsing, Voice-Over-Internet phone calls, pictures, streaming video, you name it. The splitter has no intelligence at all, it just makes a blind copy. There could not possibly be a legal warrant for this, since according to the 4th Amendment warrants have to be specific, "particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." ...

This was a massive blind copying of the communications of millions of people, foreign and domestic, randomly mixed together. From a legal standpoint, it does not matter what they claim to throw away later in their secret rooms, the violation has already occurred at the splitter. (Mark Klein, Wiring Up the Big Brother Machine... And Fighting It, Charleston, South Carolina: BookSurge, 2009, pp. 38-39.)

What was Google's response?

In a statement to the German publication WirtschaftsWoche a Google corporate spokesperson said: "As a law abiding company, we comply with valid legal process, and that--as for any U.S. based company--means the data stored outside of the U.S. may be subject to lawful access by the U.S. government. That said, we are committed to protecting user privacy when faced with law enforcement requests. We have a long track record of advocating on behalf of user privacy in the face of such requests and we scrutinize requests carefully to ensure that they adhere to both the letter and the spirit of the law before complying." (translation courtesy of Public Intelligence)

Is the Senate Intelligence Committee's steadfast refusal to release documents and secret legal memos that most certainly target American citizens also another blatant example of American exceptionalism meant to protect U.S. firms operating abroad from exposure as corporate spies for the government?

It isn't as if NSA hasn't been busy doing just that here at home.

As The New York Times reported back in 2009, the "National Security Agency intercepted private e-mail messages and phone calls of Americans in recent months on a scale that went beyond the broad legal limits established by Congress last year."

Chalking up the problem to "overcollection" and "technical difficulties," unnamed intelligence officials and administration lawyers told journalists Eric Lichtblau and James Risen that although the practice was "significant and systemic ... it was believed to have been unintentional."

As "unintentional" as ginned-up intelligence that made the case for waging aggressive war against oil-rich Iraq!

In a follow-up piece, the Times revealed that NSA "appears to have tolerated significant collection and examination of domestic e-mail messages without warrants."

A former NSA analyst "read into" the illegal program told Lichtblau and Risen that he "and other analysts were trained to use a secret database, code-named Pinwale, in 2005 that archived foreign and domestic e-mail messages."

Email readily handed over by Google, Microsoft or other firms "subject to lawful access" by the Pentagon spy satrapy?

The Times' anonymous source said "Pinwale allowed N.S.A. analysts to read large volumes of e-mail messages to and from Americans as long as they fell within certain limits--no more than 30 percent of any database search, he recalled being told--and Americans were not explicitly singled out in the searches."

DOJ obstructs murder investigation

The Examiner
William Heuisler

Agent Brian Terry's Funeral

The Department of Justice (DOJ) has deliberately undercut investigations into the murder of Tucson District Border Patrol Agent, Brian Terry. Apparently DOJ will do anything to avoid blame for the effects of their Gunrunner/ Fast and Furious gun-smuggling operations.

Two days after the former Marine and Border Agent was killed, on December 14th, 2010, Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) Phoenix supervisors confirmed AK47 rifles from the Terry murder scene were from Operation Gunrunner’s “Fast and Furious” smuggling scheme to deliver nearly 2000 combat weapons to Mexican drug cartels. (Serrano, 2011)

Emails sent by ATF supervisors two days after Terry's killing openly discuss Fast and Furious guns found at the murder scene. George Gillett, acting special agent in charge, sent his boss, William Newell, a "narrative of incident/activity" about the Border Agent’s death. The email narrative said Jaime Avila bought three AK-47s a year earlier from a Phoenix-area store and two "were recovered in the area" of Agent Terry's killing. "In summary," the email said, "Avila admitted to ATF agents that he straw purchased these firearms for an unidentified Hispanic male." (ATF emails 2011)

Two months later, the United States Department of Justice clumsily tried to obstruct the Terry murder investigation.

In response to Senator Grassley’s question about the Terry murder gun, DOJ emailed, "these allegations are not true", and made no acknowledgement the guns were even there. Then DOJ reversed themselves and made a specious distinction between guns “found” at the murder scene and guns "used" in the killing. (Serrano, 2011)

More obstruction in a February 3rd email to ATF supervisors: "You are in no way obligated to respond to congressional contacts or requests for information...not authorized to disclose non-public information about law enforcement matters outside of ATF or the Department of Justice to anyone, including congressional staff." (ATF emails, 2011)

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In emails to William Hoover, ATF acting deputy director, bureau officials even discussed what steps to take to throw Grassley and congressional investigators off the murder trail. An email to Hoover actually proposed obstruction: a "watered-down" account of what was found at the site of the Terry killing. (Serrano, 2011) (ATF emails, 2011)

Lastly, in a cynical parody of reality on July 19th, spokeswoman for Attorney General, Holder, Tracy Schmaler, said to Senate investigators, “Fighting criminal activity along the southwest border - including the illegal trafficking of guns to Mexico - has been a priority of this administration and this Department of Justice.” (Seper, 2011)

Faced with lying to Congress, suborning perjury, and poisoning a murder investigation, what should Americans do when their Justice Department obstructs justice?


ATF emails (2011). Los Angeles Times data desk. ATF emails in Agent’s shooting death. http://documents.latimes.com/atf-emails-agent-shooting/

Serrano, R. (2011). Latimes.com. ATF sought to downplay guns scandal emails show. http://www.latimes.com/news/la-na-0722-fast-furious-emails,0,2978238,print.story

Seper, J. (2011). The Washington Times. House to question ATF officials on guns to Mexico. Meddling by Justice a key issue. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/jul/20/house-to-question-atf-officials-on-guns-to-mexico/

Eric Holder for the defense?

Examiner

Murdered Border Agent Brian Terry

William Heuisler

1) Why was murdered Border Agent, Brian Terry, outgunned in December of  2010?
   
2) Was "Operation Gunrunner" * an enterprise planned and promoted by the US DOJ?       
                             
3) Will Criminal Liability re: Arizona Revised Statute 13-303, or Conspiracy 13-1003, or Facilitation 13-1004, be charged against Directors of the Departments of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms, ATF or Justice, DOJ?

4) When will Defense Attorneys be calling Attorney General, Eric Holder as a witness?

Each question is reasonable. In Holder’s 2009 Cuernevaca speech he bragged of his “Operation Gunrunner” *. (Holder, 2009) Gunrunner has smuggled over 1,700 firearms to Mexico’s drug cartels.

Two of those firearms were recovered from the scene of Agent Brian Terry’s murder by drug smugglers 40 miles south of Tucson in December of 2010.

On March 16th, 2011, Senator Grassley (Judiciary Committee) asked Chief of Customs Border Patrol, Bersin (CBP) to explain information that, “according to several Agents”: 

“CBP officials allegedly stopped Jaime Avila near the border in the spring or summer of 2010. He allegedly had the two WASR-10 rifles in his possession that were later found at the scene of Agent Brian Terry’s murder… CBP officials contacted ATF, or an Assistant US Attorney, who allegedly instructed CBP to allow Avila to proceed without seizing the weapons.” (Grassley, 2011)
The CBP Chief has not explained why a US Attorney would authorize Avila’s release.

Imagine a Defense Attorney representing a suspect who was abetted by a U.S. Agency in  an accused crime. That attorney will certainly demand discovery of Agency records and Agents involved with his client’s alleged crime. The prosecutor will be forced by a Judge to name relevant policies and people in ATF or DOJ to satisfy that discovery.

Democrats to Introduce Gun Control Legislation

The Tipsheet
Katie Pavlich

Democrat Representatives Maloney, Cummings and McCarthy, all members of the Minority on the House Oversight Committee chaired by Republican Congressman Issa, plan to hold a press conference tomorrow to announce new gun control anti-gun trafficking legislation in light of Operation Fast and Furious. The "Stop Gun Trafficking and Strengthen Law Enforcement Act," is designed to "keep high powered firearms out of the hands of dangerous criminals, including Mexican drug cartels."

U.S. Representatives Carolyn B. Maloney (D-NY), Elijah E. Cummings (D-MD), ranking member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, and Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY) will join other members and a leading law enforcement organization for an event Friday, July 15th, 11:00 a.m. at the House Triangle to introduce the “Stop Gun Trafficking and Strengthen Law Enforcement Act,” which establishes a dedicated firearms trafficking statute to empower law enforcement to keep high-powered firearms out of the hands of dangerous criminals, including Mexican drug cartels.

So let me get this straight, democrats want to punish law abiding Americans and impede on Second Amendment rights with new legislation "to prevent gun trafficking to Mexico," however, aren't willing to focus on the ATF and DOJ's role in deliberately putting high powered firearms into the hands of criminals including Mexican drug cartels? It doesn't matter how many gun control laws we have on the books if the federal government is willing to break them to push a political agenda, however, this is not surprising.

FLASHBACK:

“Allowing loads of weapons that we knew to be destined for criminals, this was the plan. It was so mandated.” –Special Agent John Dodson ATF Phoenix Field Division.

Damning new evidence from Capitol Hill shows that ATF Directors and Justice Department Officials knew about and encouraged the purposeful trafficking of thousands of weapons across the southern border, despite strong objections from ATF agents. Thousands of innocent lives were taken as the result, including those of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry and ICE Agent Jamie Zapata.

The announcement of new legislation comes just a day after Townhall obtained emails showing Operation Fast and Furious was designed to promote gun control and four days after the DOJ Deputy Attorney General James Cole, who is under investigation for his involvement in the scandal, released new reporting requirements for multiple sales of certain semi-automatic rifles.

Katie Pavlich
Katie Pavlich the News Editor at Townhall.com.

Attorney General on a razor's edge

Examiner
William Heuisler

Attorney General (AG) Eric Holder is tiptoeing on a razor’s edge of incompetence or perjury.

He has once again denied prior knowledge of Operation Fast and Furious (Gunrunner) smuggling guns into Mexico that were used to kill American Agents. President Obama told CBS last week, “My attorney general has made clear that he certainly would not have ordered gun running to be able to pass through into Mexico”. (Attkisson, 2011)

But more evidence has surfaced that Holder must have known ATF was smuggling guns into Mexico at least a year before Border Agent Brian Terry was killed in the desert south of Tucson by ATF-smuggled-Operation-Gunrunner-weapons.

The evidence? Senator Charles Grassley last week showed his House Committee an email from Phoenix ATF Agent in Charge, William Newell, about a “Southwest Border Strategy Group” of senior Justice Department officials meeting on October 27, 2009.

The meeting was about Gunrunner, and smuggling guns into Mexico. (Owens, 2011)

Present were:

1) Assistant AG (Criminal Division) Lanny Breuer.

2) Kenneth Melson, Acting Director, ATF.

3) William Hoover, Acting Deputy Director, ATF.

4) Michele Leonhart, Administrator, DEA.

5) Robert Mueller, Director FBI.

6) Justice Department Directors of Organized Crime, Drug Enforcement Task Force, Bureau of Prisons, U.S. Marshals, and Executive Office for US Attorneys.

7) The chairman of the Attorney General’s Advisory Committee.

8) The U.S. Attorneys of four southwest Border States. (Owens, 2011)

Torture crimes officially, permanently shielded

Salon
Glen Greenwald

In August, 2009, Attorney General Eric Holder -- under continuous, aggressive prodding by the Obama White House -- announced that three categories of individuals responsible for Bush-era torture crimes would be fully immunized from any form of criminal investigation and prosecution:  (1) Bush officials who ordered the torture (Bush, Cheney, Rice, Powell, Ashcroft, Rumsfeld); (2) Bush lawyers who legally approved it (Yoo, Bybee, Levin), and (3) those in the CIA and the military who tortured within the confines of the permission slips they were given by those officials and lawyers (i.e., "good-faith" torturers).  The one exception to this sweeping immunity was that low-level CIA agents and servicemembers who went so far beyond the torture permission slips as to basically commit brutal, unauthorized murder would be subject to a "preliminary review" to determine if a full investigation was warranted -- in other words, the Abu Ghraib model of justice was being applied, where only low-ranking scapegoats would be subject to possible punishment while high-level officials would be protected.

Yesterday, it was announced that this "preliminary review" by the prosecutor assigned to conduct it, U.S. Attorney John Durham, is now complete, and -- exactly as one would expect -- even this category of criminals has been almost entirely protected, meaning a total legal whitewash for the Bush torture regime:

The Justice Department has opened full criminal investigations of the deaths in CIA custody of two detainees, including one who perished at Iraq's notorious Abu Ghraib prison, U.S. officials said Thursday.

The decision, announced by Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., means continued legal jeopardy for several CIA operatives but at the same time closes the book on inquiries that potentially threatened many others. A federal prosecutor reviewed 101 cases in which agency officers and contractors interrogated suspected terrorists during years of military action after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks but found cause to pursue criminal cases in only two. . . .

The two token cases to be investigated involve the most grotesque brutality imaginable: they apparently are (1) a detainee who froze to death in an American secret prison in Afghanistan in 2002 after being ordered stripped and chained to a concrete floor, and (2) the 2003 death of a detainee at Abu Ghraib whose body was infamously photographed by guards giving a thumbs-up sign.  All other crimes in the Bush torture era will be fully protected.  Lest there be any doubt about what a profound victory this is for those responsible for the torture regime, consider the reaction of the CIA:

"On this, my last day as director, I welcome the news that the broader inquiries are behind us," said a statement from CIA Director Leon Panetta, who will take over as defense secretary on Friday. "We are now finally about to close this chapter of our agency's history" . . . . At CIA headquarters on Thursday, Holder’s announcement was greeted with relief. . . .

Consider what's being permanently shielded from legal accountability.  The Bush torture regime extended to numerous prisons around the world, in which tens of thousands of mostly Muslim men were indefinitely imprisoned without a whiff of due process, and included a network of secret prisons -- "black sites" -- purposely placed beyond the monitoring reach of even international human rights groups, such as the International Red Cross.

Over 100 detainees died during U.S. interrogations, dozens due directly to interrogation abuse.  Gen. Barry McCaffrey said: "We tortured people unmercifully. We probably murdered dozens of them during the course of that, both the armed forces and the C.I.A."  Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba, who oversaw the official investigation into detainee abuse, wrote:  "there is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes. The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account."

Thanks to the Obama DOJ, that is no longer in question.  The answer is resoundingly clear: American war criminals, responsible for some of the most shameful and inexcusable crimes in the nation's history -- the systematic, deliberate legalization of a worldwide torture regime -- will be fully immunized for those crimes.  And, of course, the Obama administration has spent years just as aggressively shielding those war criminals from all other forms of accountability beyond the criminal realm: invoking secrecy and immunity doctrines to prevent their victims from imposing civil liability, exploiting their party's control of Congress to suppress formal inquiries, and pressuring and coercing other nations not to investigate their own citizens' torture at American hands.

All of those efforts, culminating in yesterday's entirely unsurprising announcement, means that the U.S. Government has effectively shielded itself from even minimal accountability for its vast torture crimes of the last decade.  Without a doubt, that will be one of the most significant, enduring and consequential legacies of the Obama presidency.