In a recommended diary today, Big Tent Democrat draws attention to a New York Times editorial which includes the following passage:
The Bush administration’s assault on civil liberties does not end with habeas corpus. Congress should also move quickly to pass another crucial bill, introduced by Senator Christopher Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut, that, among other steps, would once and for all outlaw the use of evidence obtained through torture.
I think a small reality check is needed. It might be obvious, but I'm going to provide it anyway.
The reality of the US Government's torture prisons is this: It doesn't matter if it's illegal.
Why? Read on...
The money quote above is the description of Dodd's bill as one which will "... outlaw the use of evidence obtained through torture."
Whether or not evidence can be used is something which, say, the FBI cares very deeply about. If they're trying to obtain a verdict in a criminal case, they don't want their evidence ruled inadmissible.
The desire to win prosecutions exerts a powerful moderating force against the excesses of the various investigative agencies operated by the Government. It isn't hard to imagine a murder investigation where the only available non-circumstantial evidence pinning the crime to the suspect is in the form of fingerprints on a weapon. In that situation, it isn't in the prosecutor's best interests to obtain information about the whereabouts of the weapon by torturing a suspect, or by carrying out an illegal wiretap, or by slipping into the suspect's house without a search warrant and ransacking their sock drawer.
No, when the Government wants to send someone to jail, it's very important for them to do things by the book. At the very least it's important for them to not write press releases about how they're being uncompromising and staunch defenders of society by not playing by the book, in the way the Bush administration does.
So where does that leave Habeas Corpus, torture, warrantless wiretaps, warrantless searches through financial data, and so on?
Well, think about what the Governments wants to do with information it obtains by breaking those laws, and the sanctions it'd get by breaking them.
Let's say we have someone like Jose Padilla. And lets say they've been denying his Habeas Corpus rights by holding him illegally in a brig, and they've been obtaining tainted evidence by torturing him. What consequences will the Government endure?
Well, if a court finds that Padilla has been held illegally, they'll issue an order to have him either released or held legally. The Government will file some paperwork which will either heal the breach, or (more likely) cause Padilla's representatives to have to start all over again with yet another Habeas Corpus appeal against his new detention conditions. Neither of those things present huge difficulties for the Government, do they?
And what of torture? Well, they can spend years torturing him to the brink of death, and the worst thing that'll happen is that the Government won't be able to admit any evidence obtained through torture in a court. That's it.
Seriously, that's it.
The Government isn't even remotely interested in presenting any of their "evidence" in court (otherwise they'd have done so already), so that means they can keep torturing him and whoever else they want seemingly forever.
It doesn't matter if it's illegal.
Have a think about what's happening at Guantanamo Bay. The only purpose that concentration camp serves is to provide a forum for torture. If it wasn't being used specifically to violate the human rights of the individuals held within, there'd be no reason why they wouldn't be able to be held under different, less destructive conditions. After looking at the mountains of evidence of misconduct and abuse accumulated from witnesses and ex-inmates at Guantanamo, I don't think any sentient being can sanely question the notion that Guantanamo is purely and simply George W. Bush's torture chamber.
So what's going to happen if Dodd's bill passes into law? Nothing. The "evidence" obtained by torturing the kidnapped multitudes at Camp Delta won't be admissible in court, but we've already seen several failed and rejected variations of "military commission" tribunals which show that the Government isn't interested in presenting any evidence in a properly constituted court.
My belief is that the Guantanamo Bay torture camp will continue to exist in its present form, with all its excesses, all its routine violations of human rights, and all its cruelty and inhumanity until an executive order countermands the executive order which set it up.
And for that we'll need a Democrat in the White House.