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You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / Today’s Torture Update

Today’s Torture Update

by Anne Laurie|  December 11, 201410:46 pm| 105 Comments

This post is in: Foreign Affairs, War on Terror aka GSAVE®, Bring On The Meteor, Security Theatre

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"Does torture work?" as a question needs to be put in the bin with "Is slavery commercially feasible?" & "Can genocide help overpopulation?"

— Hend (@LibyaLiberty) December 10, 2014

Brennan: "unknowable" if we could have gotten the intel other ways. Study shows it IS knowable: CIA had info before torture. #ReadTheReport

— Sen Dianne Feinstein (@SenFeinstein) December 11, 2014

Brennan, ca. 2009 http://t.co/1aJUNlxSGp pic.twitter.com/TMF1cofU6n

— Dan Froomkin (@froomkin) December 11, 2014

100+ interview reports, oral and written testimony, CIA’s response and numerous CIA meetings all contributed to study. #ReadTheReport

— Sen Dianne Feinstein (@SenFeinstein) December 11, 2014

No time to read #TortureReport: this info graphic summarizes key findings & takes less a minute to read: http://t.co/vQ9n8ZcGDe

— Maher Arar (@ArarMaher) December 10, 2014

We broke the law. This Human Rights Day, call for a criminal investigation on US #torture. http://t.co/urur1X5KPO pic.twitter.com/3OFQA9Joun

— ACLU National (@ACLU) December 10, 2014

Those who carried out CIA torture are not "good people" with a bad job. Good people don't commit rape whether its their job or not.

— Murtaza Hussain (@MazMHussain) December 10, 2014

Yoo: SSCI started w conclusion & "cherry picked" evidence. SSCI: Yoo, Bush, Cheney started w conclusion & tortured to get "evidence."

— David Waldman (@KagroX) December 10, 2014

Calling torture… WSJ: "rough treatment" WaPo: "severe tactics" NPR: "enhanced interrogation" NYT: "torture"

— Eric Umansky (@ericuman) December 10, 2014

After playing videos of beheading for days straight, CNN now claiming report on torture might cause violence.

— emptywheel (@emptywheel) December 9, 2014

Amy Davidson, in the New Yorker:

There is a tape recording somewhere, unless the Central Intelligence Agency has destroyed it, that captures the sound of a man named Nazar Ali crying. He was a prisoner in a secret C.I.A. prison, in a foreign country where terrorists were supposed to be interrogated. But Nazar Ali, whom a Senate Select Intelligence Committee report, part of which was released on Tuesday, suggests has a developmental disability—it quotes an assessment of him as “intellectually challenged”—was no sophisticated Al Qaeda operative. It is not even clear, from what’s been released of the report, that his interrogation was an attempt to gain information, or indeed that he was properly interrogated at all. According to the report, his “C.I.A. detention was used solely as leverage to get a family member to provide information.” A footnote later in the report, where his name appears, explains that Nazar Ali’s “taped crying was used as leverage against his family member.” Left unexplained is what the American operatives did to make this man cry. Did they plan ahead, preparing recording equipment and proddings, or did they just, from their perspective, get lucky?…

" Let us be clear: torture can never be an instrument to fight terror, for torture is an instrument of terror"- Kofi Annan #TortureReport

— Maher Arar (@ArarMaher) December 9, 2014

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Previous Post: « With Much Fanfare
Next Post: Late Night Forget-It Open Thread »

Reader Interactions

105Comments

  1. 1.

    Baud

    December 11, 2014 at 10:48 pm

    Is the twitter wall thing going to be SOP around here from now on?

  2. 2.

    Mnemosyne

    December 11, 2014 at 10:54 pm

    It was pretty sweet yesterday to hear the author of this book basically shoot down every stupid question the NPR reporter could think of about “enhanced interrogation.” He said what pretty much every single professional interrogator has said from the very beginning: not only is torture morally wrong, but it doesn’t get you information any faster than using non-coercive interrogation. You’re more likely to find that “ticking time bomb” by talking to the suspect than you are by torturing them.

  3. 3.

    Corner Stone

    December 11, 2014 at 10:57 pm

    @Baud: Don’t make me get my screwdriver…

  4. 4.

    eemom

    December 11, 2014 at 11:01 pm

    @Baud:

    It’s at least a little variety from solid blocks of copyrighted text, aka “long reads”.

    Jussayinzall.

    [edited due to “strike” dysfunction]

  5. 5.

    Jane2

    December 11, 2014 at 11:02 pm

    Twitter comments….so pithy, so transitional, so easily forgotten, so easy to not actually talk about torture.

  6. 6.

    Corner Stone

    December 11, 2014 at 11:03 pm

    @Jane2: Yeah, we could actually see where we are. Or we could carp about the format.

  7. 7.

    divF

    December 11, 2014 at 11:03 pm

    @eemom: God help us all if tweets can be copyrighted.

  8. 8.

    Omnes Omnibus

    December 11, 2014 at 11:04 pm

    “Does torture work?” as a question needs to be put in the bin with “Is slavery commercially feasible?” & “Can genocide help overpopulation?”

    QFT.

    OTOH, I join in the bitching about the Twitter walls.

  9. 9.

    Mike J

    December 11, 2014 at 11:05 pm

    @eemom: She gets me bitching about how much stupidity can be crammed into 140 characters and you complaining about posts with substance.

  10. 10.

    Corner Stone

    December 11, 2014 at 11:08 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: They’re quick hits across a spectrum. Scroll past. You don’t see others saying Richard’s massive amount of text on the FP is an issue. Which it is.
    Don’t make me break out my hazing gear.

  11. 11.

    Mandalay

    December 11, 2014 at 11:09 pm

    Oh goody….another OP full of tweets. :(

    I know you work your ass off here….you probably contribute almost as much all the other OPs combined I suspect. But just hurling up loads of tweets does not make for very inspiring OPs.

  12. 12.

    Omnes Omnibus

    December 11, 2014 at 11:09 pm

    @Corner Stone: Fine, I’ll do my ten push-ups.

  13. 13.

    greennotGreen

    December 11, 2014 at 11:10 pm

    Murtaza Hussain wrote: “Those who carried out CIA torture are not “good people” with a bad job. Good people don’t commit rape whether its their job or not.”

    Nonsense. They were good Germans.

    We in the U.S. have a choice: Prosecute our own criminals or throw them and ourselves at the mercy of the World Court.

  14. 14.

    Corner Stone

    December 11, 2014 at 11:11 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: I ain’t doing them with you, pledge. I have a calzone coming out of the oven.

  15. 15.

    Violet

    December 11, 2014 at 11:13 pm

    @Corner Stone: That would be unproductive.

  16. 16.

    Corner Stone

    December 11, 2014 at 11:13 pm

    @greennotGreen:

    We in the U.S. have a choice: Prosecute our own criminals or throw them and ourselves at the mercy of the World Court.

    There’s the third option. Stick our busted ass Cole middle finger right out at the world community.
    And tell them if they don’t like being fed rectally then they shouldn’t have been fucking brown. And they can all go fuck themselves because we’re exceptional.

  17. 17.

    JordanRules

    December 11, 2014 at 11:16 pm

    Mercy. The twitter struggle is real.

  18. 18.

    Corner Stone

    December 11, 2014 at 11:16 pm

    @Violet: I still think that is a spoof account. Nobody is that fucking dense, or so repetitive in their density.

  19. 19.

    Corner Stone

    December 11, 2014 at 11:17 pm

    @JordanRules: la lucha continúa

  20. 20.

    Violet

    December 11, 2014 at 11:18 pm

    I don’t mind the tweet posts. They’re an interesting way to see a cross section of thoughts on a subject. It’s not like the entire site is only Twitter posts, day after day. There’s plenty of other stuff here.

  21. 21.

    JordanRules

    December 11, 2014 at 11:21 pm

    @Violet: Agreed! And once the subject is presented, in addition to the discussion in the comments, you may find links with a different, longer format.

  22. 22.

    mclaren

    December 11, 2014 at 11:25 pm

    “Does torture work?” as a question needs to be put in the bin with “Is slavery commercially feasible?” & “Can genocide help overpopulation?”

    On the contrary — torture works beautifully. It works to intimidate the rest of the American population.

    The true purpose of torture has nothing to do with “getting information.” It’s all about controlling the American population. Torture one victim and you can control a thousand unruly protesters. Torture 1,000 unruly protesters and you can control an entire nation.

    Torture is all about social control. And the evidence shows that it’s working perfectly. Americans are now too afraid to protest the ever-growing totalitarianism consuming this country.

    We heard huge groundswells of rage about the NSA surveillance — and what was the result? Nothing. No streets filled with raging protesters, no capitol building shut down by sit-ins, no Lincoln Memorial so jammed with protesters that the National Guard had to be called in (as happened with the protests against Nixon’s Cambodian bombing in 1970).

    Why?

    Because comfortable white middle-class people are scared spitless of winding up in one of those torture chambers.

  23. 23.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    December 11, 2014 at 11:26 pm

    @Corner Stone: Got a screw loose, CS? Always thought so.

  24. 24.

    Violet

    December 11, 2014 at 11:27 pm

    @JordanRules: Some of the tweets posted may also contain links to articles. The posts are a good way to generate discussion on a subject and give a variety of views around which to have that discussion.

  25. 25.

    KG

    December 11, 2014 at 11:27 pm

    @divF: actually, all tweets can be copyrighted by the tweeter. In fact, they’re protected under common law copyright. Registering for the copyright is where it’s tough because it’s really expensive, though I suppose you could use the periodical category. The thing is, what is the economic value of tweets?

  26. 26.

    JordanRules

    December 11, 2014 at 11:28 pm

    @Corner Stone: Bending the arc of history towards Instagram plehboi.

    Spanish translation?

  27. 27.

    Corner Stone

    December 11, 2014 at 11:28 pm

    This has been a surprisingly entertaining 12 – 6 NFL Thursday night game between AZ and STL.

  28. 28.

    GregB

    December 11, 2014 at 11:29 pm

    Has anyone asked these pro-torture ratfuckers to find torture in the Constitution?

  29. 29.

    Corner Stone

    December 11, 2014 at 11:29 pm

    @JordanRules: Indeed. The struggle continues.

  30. 30.

    Omnes Omnibus

    December 11, 2014 at 11:29 pm

    @KG:

    The thing is, what is the economic value of tweets?

    Mine are few but priceless – that is, no one would pay anything for them.

  31. 31.

    JordanRules

    December 11, 2014 at 11:30 pm

    @Corner Stone: Nice to not have pre-Friday blowout too.

  32. 32.

    divF

    December 11, 2014 at 11:31 pm

    @KG:

    actually, all tweets can be copyrighted by the tweeter. In fact, they’re protected under common law copyright.

    “I can’t tell you how extremely sorry I am to hear that. “

  33. 33.

    Corner Stone

    December 11, 2014 at 11:31 pm

    @BillinGlendaleCA: More than one, amigo. At this point there’s nothing I’d like more than tightening a few screws.

  34. 34.

    Omnes Omnibus

    December 11, 2014 at 11:32 pm

    @Corner Stone: I would really like to see a Rams win.

  35. 35.

    Corner Stone

    December 11, 2014 at 11:33 pm

    @JordanRules:

    Nice to not have pre-Friday blowout too.

    I…uhhh…hmmm…

  36. 36.

    JordanRules

    December 11, 2014 at 11:33 pm

    @Violet: Absolutely. Those tweets with good links are a bit like signposts for me.

  37. 37.

    KG

    December 11, 2014 at 11:33 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: yeah, that’s what I mean, even if somebody infringes on your copyright (and the case discussing whether retweeting is fair use would be orth an entire law school seminar class), do they obtain any economic advantage? Not that the law requires that to find a violation

  38. 38.

    Omnes Omnibus

    December 11, 2014 at 11:35 pm

    @KG: I avoided IP classes for a reason – just like I avoided family law classes.

  39. 39.

    JordanRules

    December 11, 2014 at 11:37 pm

    @Corner Stone: I decided to wear a natural dayum! It keeps my co-workers on their feet.

    Pick to end it.
    Fisher might have a slice of Dick Clark’s DNA.

  40. 40.

    divF

    December 11, 2014 at 11:37 pm

    @KG:

    (and the case discussing whether retweeting is fair use would be [w]orth an entire law school seminar class)

    *Shakes head sadly*

  41. 41.

    KG

    December 11, 2014 at 11:41 pm

    @divF: people typically don’t understand copyright law, every picture on your phone or facebook or camera is protected by common law copyright. As is anything you write on your own blog, or in a journal. Common law copyright is governed by state law but basically provides a way for you to recover if somebody else publishes your stuff without permission.

    Federal copyright protection requires registering the work (which costs money) and publication. As I said, registering copyrights for tweets is probably not cost effective, nor does it have any economic value

  42. 42.

    Omnes Omnibus

    December 11, 2014 at 11:41 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: Fuck, never mind, I hadn’t noticed the game was over. I would have liked to have seen a Rams win.

  43. 43.

    mclaren

    December 11, 2014 at 11:43 pm

    The ACLU once again uses euphemisms and bafflegab to obscure the real problem in America today:

    We broke the law. This Human Rights Day, call for a criminal investigation on US.

    No sir, I didn’t break the law. I guar-fucking-tee you that I did not break any law whatsoever in this situation. The people who broke the goddamn law were high elected officials and elite appointees like George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, the joint chiefs of staff of the army, navy, air force and marine corps, and the director of the CIA. These are the people who broke the law.

    So let’s not use fucking euphemisms like “we” broke law, okay? “We” did not break the goddamn law, specific elected and appointed elite officials in the U.S. government broke the goddamn law.

    Likewise, we do not need to “call for a criminal investigation on US.” We need to call for a criminal investigation leading to prosecution and potential treason trials of the former president of the United States, the former Vice president of the united states, the former secretary of defense of the united states, the former joints chiefs of staff of the U.S. army, the U.S. navy, the U.S. air force, the U.S. marine corps, and the former director of the central intelligence agency.

    Treason is a capital crime. When the investigation leads to indictments and a trial, a guilty verdict should result in the appropriate punishment.

    Which means that after the trial finds them guilty, we (and I really mean we here, we the people) need to see that the former president of the United States George W. Bush hangs by the neck until he is dead. We the people need to ensure that the former vice president of the United States Dick Cheney hangs by the neck until he is dead. We the people need to ensure that the former secretary of defense of the United States Donald Rumsfeld hangs by the neck until he is dead. We the people need to ensure that the former director of the CIA hangs by the neck until he is dead.

    And this is why none of this is going to happen. Because once you start down that road, you’re gonna open a whole can of worms. Think about all the people complicit in the torture: Paul Wolfowitz, the ruler of Iraq; Condoleeza Rice, who aided and abetted an illegal war of aggression and signed off on the torture; most of the Bush cabinet, who colluded in and/or knew about and kept silent about this torture and genocide and the WMD lies and propaganda. People like Fareed Zakaria, who participated in a round table meeting that laid out the plans for the illegal war of aggression against Iraq and who cheerled the torture and mass murder until it became so clear that the heinous atrocities represented a failed policy that he backed off. Tom Friedman, the Josef Streicher of torture and Iraqi genocide (“Suck. On. This.”).

    Think of all the ancillary characters who would have to be dragged in front of a war crime tribunal for conspiracy to commit murder, conspiracy to purvey propaganda leading to the torture and murder of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, collusion in genocide and torture, lying in order to further an illegal war of aggression — America in 1946 and 1947 hanged high officials in Japan and Germany for the kinds of crimes many thousands of American committed over the last 14 years.

    Judith Miller would have to shuffle in front of a war crimes tribunal wearing an orange jumpsuit, the former editor of the New York Times would have to crab-walk forward in shackles whimpering and pleading for his life as the prosecutor read out the hour-long list of war crimes and torture and mass murder in which he colluded and which his lies aided and abetted…this would gut American society.

    Academics would be dragged before the war crimes tribunal, journalists would be tried and convicted and hung, most of the former high Pentagon officers of the U.S. army, navy, air force and marine corps would be courts-martialed for war crimes and shot.

    Not.

    Gonna.

    Happen.

  44. 44.

    KG

    December 11, 2014 at 11:43 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: I had a dream of doing entertainment law for a while, so I took IP (avoided family law and community property like Ebola). And since I am trying to write, it was something that always appealed to me

  45. 45.

    divF

    December 11, 2014 at 11:47 pm

    @KG:

    Federal copyright protection requires registering the work (which costs money) and publication. As I said, registering copyrights for tweets is probably not cost effective, nor does it have any economic value

    Thanks for taking my semi-snark seriously, and providing the clarification. As someone who lives on the fuzzy edge of tech, I actually have a morbid fascination with IP law, mainly to protect the rights to use my own work from being snatched out from under me (I am more than happy to let anyone else use it).

  46. 46.

    Omnes Omnibus

    December 11, 2014 at 11:50 pm

    @KG: The only time I have really touched on it was a brief period of time when a law school buddy and I got into film-making. We shot a couple of shorts and wrote a couple of screenplays. We didn’t register the copyright on anything, but we did register the screenplays with the Writers Guild.

  47. 47.

    mclaren

    December 11, 2014 at 11:50 pm

    @JordanRules:

    “The arc of history is long, but it bends toward Nixon.”

    Martin Luther King’s original was “The arc of history is long, but it bends towards justice,” but that’s outdated now. New pithy mottos for new pithy times.

  48. 48.

    divF

    December 11, 2014 at 11:52 pm

    @mclaren: I hope you won’t take this amiss, but I think that your short form work is much more effective than your extended screeds. This one was particularly witty.

  49. 49.

    Omnes Omnibus

    December 11, 2014 at 11:57 pm

    @mclaren:

    Martin Luther King’s original was “The arc of history is long, but it bends towards justice,”

    Golly, no one here had any idea that JordanRules was play off of that MLK quote, least of all her(?). Of course, you probably don’t care that MLK was paraphrasing Theodore Parker, an abolitionist and Transcendentalist.

  50. 50.

    JordanRules

    December 12, 2014 at 12:08 am

    @Omnes Omnibus: Her indeed!

    I was Theo’s ghostwriter though. King and Lincoln knew a good source of inspiration when they read one.

  51. 51.

    Omnes Omnibus

    December 12, 2014 at 12:11 am

    @JordanRules: King’s paraphrase is so much better than Parker’s original. King distilled it down to its essence.

  52. 52.

    mclaren

    December 12, 2014 at 12:12 am

    Meanwhile, congress just passed a law allowing “warrantless forfeiture” of all wireless communications.

    `Congress has quietly passed an Intelligence Authorization Bill that includes warrantless forfeiture of private communications to local law enforcement. Representative Justin Amash unsuccessfully attempted a late bid to oppose the bill, which passed 325-100. According to Amash, the bill “grants the executive branch virtually unlimited access to the communications of every American.”‘

    http://thehill.com/policy/technology/226752-gop-rep-attempted-late-bid-to-kill-spy-bill

    And what does this lead to?

    This.

  53. 53.

    Corner Stone

    December 12, 2014 at 12:13 am

    @JordanRules:

    I was Theo’s ghostwriter though.

    I never knew Theo Huckstable authored an autobiography. Do tell!

  54. 54.

    patrick II

    December 12, 2014 at 12:15 am

    Chris Rock on Letterman tonight:

    “Dave, do you realize that even the WWE has outlawed the chokehold? The WWE has better sense than the NYPD. Even Steve Austin thinks a choke hold is too much”.

  55. 55.

    JordanRules

    December 12, 2014 at 12:19 am

    @Omnes Omnibus: Absolutely. It had a profound impact on me as a youngin’ and still does. It yanks me out of the depths sometimes by finding a link with history to remind me of the progress we’ve made. Keep on Pushin!

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HU-mEsCk3D8

  56. 56.

    Omnes Omnibus

    December 12, 2014 at 12:20 am

    @Corner Stone: There have been some great non sequiturs here tonight.

  57. 57.

    Omnes Omnibus

    December 12, 2014 at 12:21 am

    @JordanRules: I did not expect an Impressions link.

  58. 58.

    JordanRules

    December 12, 2014 at 12:24 am

    @Corner Stone: Nope! That Cosby proximity is too much for me right now. Like something I might read in the Funyun which doesn’t exist, but I wish it did.

  59. 59.

    Corner Stone

    December 12, 2014 at 12:24 am

    @Omnes Omnibus: I’ve got 99 Problems but a comment no one’s sure what to do with ain’t one.

  60. 60.

    JordanRules

    December 12, 2014 at 12:25 am

    @Omnes Omnibus: Ha! I swear I thought you’d see it coming a mile away. Color me surprised too.

  61. 61.

    Corner Stone

    December 12, 2014 at 12:25 am

    @JordanRules: See?

  62. 62.

    Tree With Water

    December 12, 2014 at 12:26 am

    UPDATE: (9:25 PM PST) Today’s torture report has been amended to include the craptacular budget that just passed the House tonight.

  63. 63.

    Omnes Omnibus

    December 12, 2014 at 12:27 am

    @Corner Stone: Why are we talking about Ariana Grande anyway? I know my nephew likes her, but still…

  64. 64.

    Corner Stone

    December 12, 2014 at 12:28 am

    Is there a better name for the Senate Chaplain than “Barry Black” ?

  65. 65.

    Omnes Omnibus

    December 12, 2014 at 12:29 am

    @Corner Stone: The Reverend Barry Black?

  66. 66.

    Corner Stone

    December 12, 2014 at 12:30 am

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    I know my nephew likes her, but still…

    Nephew.

    Uh huh.

    Uh huh.

    Tell the truth.

    Just keep telling the truth.

  67. 67.

    JordanRules

    December 12, 2014 at 12:32 am

    @Corner Stone: Is that the POTUS doppelganger everybody wants and needs?

  68. 68.

    Omnes Omnibus

    December 12, 2014 at 12:33 am

    @Corner Stone: That’s not fair.

  69. 69.

    Omnes Omnibus

    December 12, 2014 at 12:34 am

    @JordanRules: No, that’s “Luther, Obama’s anger translator.”

  70. 70.

    JordanRules

    December 12, 2014 at 12:34 am

    @patrick II: I need more material from that guy! He’s so good.

  71. 71.

    eemom

    December 12, 2014 at 12:35 am

    Speaking of, um, truth, RS UVA story is unravelling big time at this point.

  72. 72.

    KithKanan

    December 12, 2014 at 12:37 am

    @KG: How long ago did you take that class? Not that wikipedia is a great cite in general, but it appears your information is nearly 40 years out of date:

  73. 73.

    JordanRules

    December 12, 2014 at 12:37 am

    @Omnes Omnibus: In my dreams it is so.

  74. 74.

    smintheus

    December 12, 2014 at 12:38 am

    Btw, the real title of the “U.N Convention against Torture” is “The U.N Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment”. All that stuff is illegal, even if abuse doesn’t rise to the level of “torture”.

    Anybody going to deny that prolonged sleep deprivation, prolonged isolation, and prolonged exposure to freezing temperature is NOT cruel, inhuman or degrading?

    Yeah, I thought not. So use the full title, please.

  75. 75.

    Corner Stone

    December 12, 2014 at 12:42 am

    @smintheus:

    Anybody going to deny that prolonged sleep deprivation, prolonged isolation, and prolonged exposure to freezing temperature is NOT cruel, inhuman or degrading?

    I’m on my feet 14 or 18 hours in a day on a routine basis. What’s the big deal?

  76. 76.

    Omnes Omnibus

    December 12, 2014 at 12:44 am

    @smintheus: Just to be pissy, does failing to use the full title of the UN Convention change anything anyone has said here? I think not.

  77. 77.

    Corner Stone

    December 12, 2014 at 12:51 am

    They had 57 D’s in the House vote for this fucking budget bill?

  78. 78.

    JordanRules

    December 12, 2014 at 12:52 am

    @Corner Stone: Quit playin, you did not make that many calzones.

  79. 79.

    Omnes Omnibus

    December 12, 2014 at 12:54 am

    @Corner Stone: More and better Democrats can’t be seen as requiring both conditions.

  80. 80.

    smintheus

    December 12, 2014 at 12:55 am

    @Omnes Omnibus: Then I hope you enjoy the debate about what line separates torture from non-torture.

  81. 81.

    Steeplejack

    December 12, 2014 at 12:56 am

    @Corner Stone:

    Thanks for weighing in, Don Rumsfeld.

  82. 82.

    Omnes Omnibus

    December 12, 2014 at 12:56 am

    @JordanRules: Calzones do take time, if you do them right.

  83. 83.

    Omnes Omnibus

    December 12, 2014 at 12:58 am

    @smintheus: No offense intended, but “fuck you,”

  84. 84.

    Corner Stone

    December 12, 2014 at 12:59 am

    @JordanRules:

    Quit playin, you did not make that many calzones.

    I didn’t make enough for you, if that’s what you’re getting at.
    Now, Little Boots. Yeah. i think there’d be enough for Little Boots.
    Thread needs more Little Boots. Steeplejack’s ok, but Little Boots is better.

  85. 85.

    Omnes Omnibus

    December 12, 2014 at 1:01 am

    @Corner Stone: For the love of all that is holy and good in the world, please do not invoke that.

  86. 86.

    Steeplejack

    December 12, 2014 at 1:04 am

    @Corner Stone:

    Hey, when Boots starts slingin’ the late-night music around, you would not make it an hour there. I mean, you just would not.

  87. 87.

    JordanRules

    December 12, 2014 at 1:04 am

    @Omnes Omnibus: And it can be invoked! I swear I’ve seen it.

    Add on some Calzones that are unfriendly to labor and it’s a wrap. Invocation.

  88. 88.

    srv

    December 12, 2014 at 1:04 am

    @Corner Stone: How else was it going to pass?

  89. 89.

    Corner Stone

    December 12, 2014 at 1:10 am

    @Steeplejack: Don’t make me get my screwdriver.

  90. 90.

    Omnes Omnibus

    December 12, 2014 at 1:11 am

    @Corner Stone: Little Boots is weird but harmless. Tommy is something else.

  91. 91.

    Tenar Darell

    December 12, 2014 at 1:11 am

    You own the copyright for anything you write, including your tweets. It’s automatic. Of course you can thank Sonny Bono for how long it is too. For example, the fighting over Sherlock Holmes took place because it was extended by his law to lifetime plus 70 years or 120 from date of creation for corporate works. (So far, software code is not directly covered by copyright, but that’s where registration can come in I believe. However, any manuals would be automatic).

    Archivists and also librarians have to be familiar with this (not expert, familiar) because of the Fair Use provisions. If you ever have any questions about Fair Use, I suggest Lawrence Lessig’s who often lectures on Fair Use, and the Cornell University Copyright Information website.

  92. 92.

    Anne Laurie

    December 12, 2014 at 1:13 am

    New OT thread up top, thanks Omnes.

  93. 93.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    December 12, 2014 at 1:15 am

    @Steeplejack: My thoughts exactly.

  94. 94.

    Omnes Omnibus

    December 12, 2014 at 1:15 am

    @Tenar Darell: Yeah, but proving your ownership can be a problem. You really don’t think it is that simple, do you?

  95. 95.

    Corner Stone

    December 12, 2014 at 1:20 am

    @Omnes Omnibus: I, for one, am tired of everyone telling me how pure his heart is. Fuck him, and fuck them.
    “He just wants to tell us his stories!”

  96. 96.

    Tenar Darell

    December 12, 2014 at 2:30 am

    @Omnes Omnibus: /on soapbox

    Depends on what time period you’re talking about. In some ways, proving your copyright of unpublished and/or posted material is easier than ever because of the automatic time-stamping in a lot of software programs used for straight writing now. Even more so with a Tweet, a blog post, or even a comment.

    Legally speaking however, anytime it gets to court cases things get prohibitive really quickly. It’s often a David vs. Goliath situation, where whoever has the deep pockets for the best lawyers tends to win. (Not always, but often). And you’re right about one thing, why would anyone fight over the copyright of a single Tweet? But Billmon’s Tweet series from earlier today, if someone other than him tried to use it in their novel, or Twitter tried to publish it in a Collection of Best Tweets of 2014….Well,that seems a more rational basis for a fight.

    IIRC you’re a lawyer, but I believe you don’t specialize in copyright. But, like all lawyers do, I got some basic training. In my case it was the review all librarians and archivists get. Like when we have to inform professors how much of a book they can copy as handouts for their students vs. how much a student could copy. Or whether we need to warn the scholars who use our collections whether those papers might still be within copyright. Very basic stuff. And I know about places to get more detailed information, particularly for laypersons. No one in my profession can entirely avoid the whole range of IP and copyright issues, it affects everything from preservation to the prices libraries pay for e-books.

    Students, for example, can quote from published works without permission. That’s the classic case of fair use. But there’s so much that’s under copyright for so very long now. Which is why a basic understanding of the fair use provisions of the law are a big deal. I think it’s important that people understand that they can legally re-use and re-mix and quote for certain purposes. The law isn’t entirely on the side of literary estates or corporations.
    /off soapbox

  97. 97.

    Chuckles

    December 12, 2014 at 2:59 am

    @Anne Laurie: Count this as a “+1” on what you’re doing. Don’t know why a bunch of people above don’t like the format; I thought this was a great post.

  98. 98.

    RaptorFence

    December 12, 2014 at 8:29 am

    Fun game today: do a find-and-replace for various iterations of the word “interrogation” in this piece with “sacrificing babies to the sun god”. Krauthammer’s logic holds up remarkably well.

  99. 99.

    Starfish

    December 12, 2014 at 8:47 am

    I ilke to get New Englanders to think outside of the clam chowder, but I generally like the Tweet posts.

  100. 100.

    J R in WV

    December 12, 2014 at 9:05 am

    @GregB: @RaptorFence:

    Isn’t there a little amendment near the end about cruel and unusual punishment?

    Thought so! Although since they didn’t use the actual word “Torture” you may say it doesn’t count. I think they knew that a word means what it means, and cruelty and unusual punishment envelops torture.

    I’m not sure the fact that people overseas were tortured is what keeps people of today from engaging in mass demonstrations. I think that the fact that all the mass demonstrations held in the past didn’t make any difference in how the Executive executed is keeping many people from getting into it again.

    I’ve been teargassed in Washington DC, and it isn’t much fun, even if you are convinced that it will make a big difference. If you are convinced by history that it won’t amount to a hill of beans so far as moving the Republican Party to become humane, what’s the point in suffering?

  101. 101.

    Jado

    December 12, 2014 at 10:55 am

    @greennotGreen:

    Or ignore it. Don’t discount our ability to put our fingers in our ears and chant “Lalalala I can’t hear you.”

    Hell, we have chant leaders already in our Republican elected officials, and their media lap dogs.

    “Let’s not bicker and argue about who tortured who. We are here today to witness the domination of one people by another in the terroristic bond of the mutual antagonists… I want their natural resources, from now onwards, to think of me as their own dad … in a very real and legally binding sense.”

    No blood for oil, but plenty of blood and waterboarding for “evidence” of Iraq – Al Queda collusion to justify giant defense contracts and an invasion to get revenge for Daddy’s war

  102. 102.

    TG Chicago

    December 12, 2014 at 11:32 am

    @Chuckles: Agreed. I like the Anne Laurie posts.

  103. 103.

    PJ

    December 12, 2014 at 11:47 am

    @KG: Federal copyright law does not require registering of copyright to enforce one’s rights – it only establishes a prima facie case.

  104. 104.

    PJ

    December 12, 2014 at 11:57 am

    @Tenar Darell: As if copyright, like other forms of property, did not represent the labor and creativity of human beings, and instead was some extortionate gift from Congress to corporations and estates.

  105. 105.

    tones

    December 12, 2014 at 6:13 pm

    @mclaren:
    All of this.
    this is all I want for Christmas every single year since then.
    From your mouth to God’s ears…
    If we EVER get a real government again, they will all be in shackles at the Hague.

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