Thursday, August 30, 2007

Something Strange About Susan Collins?

White House Strongarms Moderates - Anti-Torture Clause Ditched
Reported by Marie Therese - January 13, 2005

Air America's website reports this morning that Democratic and Republican Party legislators caved in to White House pressure last month and deleted a provision in a bill that would have prohibited the use of "torture or inhumane treatment" by the CIA. The Senate had approved the new restrictions, by a 96-to-2 vote, as part of the intelligence reform legislation which would also have "required the C.I.A. as well as the Pentagon to report to Congress about the methods they were using."

In closed door meetings White House officials convinced Senator Joe Lieberman (D-Conn), Congresswoman Jane Harman (D-California), Senator Susan Collins (R-Maine), and Congressman Peter Hoekstra (R-Michigan) to delete the anti-torture provisions before the bill went to the House. A Congressional Democrat told the New York Times "that the administration wanted an escape hatch to preserve the option of using torture" against prisoners held by the C.I.A. In a letter to Congress Daniel J. Dell'Orto, the Pentagon's principal deputy counsel "criticized as �onerous' and inappropriate other provisions in the measure that would require the Pentagon to submit annual facility-by-facility reports to Congress on the status of detainees." (End excerpt.)

To read the New York Times story click here: NY Times.

COMMENT

Contact these Congresspeople and let them know that you don't like what they did and ask them to adhere to the tenets of the Geneva Conventions:


Lieberman, Joseph - (D - CT) Class I
706 HART SENATE OFFICE BUILDING WASHINGTON DC 20510
(202) 224-4041
Web Form: Sen. Lieberman

Collins, Susan - (R - ME) Class II
172 RUSSELL SENATE OFFICE BUILDING WASHINGTON DC 20510
(202) 224-2523
Web Form: Sen. Susan Collins

Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA)
2400 Rayburn
House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
Phone: (202) 225 8220
Fax: (202) 226 7290
Web form: Rep. Jane Harman

Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-MI)
2234 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515
(202) 225-4401
Fax: (202) 226-0779
Web form: Rep. Peter Hoekstra


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Why I LOVE the FBI

New documents show that FBI spied on Martin Luther King's widow

The Associated Press - HOUSTON

Federal agents spied on the widow of Martin Luther King Jr. for several years after his assassination in 1968, according to newly released documents that reveal the FBI worried about her following in the footsteps of the slain civil rights icon.

Coretta Scott King might try to tie "the anti-Vietnam movement to the civil rights movement" according to some of the nearly 500 pages of intelligence files, which go on to show how the FBI trailed King at public appearances and kept close tabs on her travel.

The documents were obtained by Houston television station KHOU in a story published Thursday. Coretta Scott King died in January 2006. She was 78.

One memo shows that the FBI even read and reviewed King's 1969 book about her late husband. The entry made a point to say that her "selfless, magnanimous, decorous attitude is belied by ... (her) actual shrewd, calculating, businesslike activities."

The documents also focus on her relationship with Stanley Levison, who was a close adviser to Martin Luther King Jr. and a person the government long suspected was a communist.

There is also evidence that the Nixon administration and then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger were kept informed of the FBI's surveillance.

Martin Luther King Jr.'s activities were long known to have been monitored by the federal government. News of intelligence gathering on famous Americans and war critics became so infamous that rules to curtail domestic spying were put in place in the 1970s.

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.