One of the best features of a visit to Los Angeles is the opportunity to hang out with the guy who put Charles Manson in prison, the most successful criminal prosecutor we’re ever likely to see, Vince Bugliosi (105 convictions in 106 felony jury trials, 21 convictions in 21 murder trials). I spoke with him on Tuesday about his forthcoming documentary film.
Al Jazeera reports:
Yemen is struggling with the possible release of the largest group of detainees at the US detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
The release of more than 90 Yemenis still being held at the facility may be delayed due to US fears that Yemen does not have the capacity to ensure the men will [...]
Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and the corporate “mainstream” media make quite a pair. We’re hearing a very “balanced” debate over whether KSM should be tried in New York City, and whether the most insane objections to that proposal are really insane or not. But what are we not hearing?
President Obama, in his visit to China, held a “town meeting” with Chinese students in which he praised openness and lectured them on the value of freedom of information, saying that he is a “supporter of non-censorship” and that open access to information was a “source of strength.” And yet America is hardly free of censorship. Heck, the president himself has gone to court to prevent the release of photographs of US troops torturing captives in Iraq, Afghanistan and at Guantanamo.
British authorities are investigating 33 new claims of abuse against UK troops who were stationed in Iraq.
The allegations by former Iraqi detainees include accusations of serious sexual abuse and torture, including one case in which a 16-year-old Iraqi says he was raped by two British soldiers on an army base. One of the victims has [...]
The United States of America owes much of the hope it has right now of remaining what John Adams called “a nation of laws, not men” to Italian law enforcement. Were it not for the fact that Italian prosecutors, unlike their American counterparts, answer to the law rather than a president, the enforcement of laws against a massive crime spree by U.S. officials (and their Italian accomplices) would not have begun.
Former British Ambassador Craig Murray says UK and the US sent prisoners to Uzbek to be tortured.
“I’m talking of people being raped with broken bottles,” Murray said. “I’m talking of people having their children tortured in front of them until they sign a confession. I’m talking of people being boiled alive. And the intelligence [...]
President Obama has cut a swathe through the Bush-era National Security Program, forcing the CIA to close its secret overseas prisons and ban harsh interrogation methods. Russia Today’s Anastasia Churkina spoke to Human Rights lawyer John Sifton, who reveals the truth behind CIA secret prisons – the controversy, the lies, the torture, and the blacked-out [...]
This report was originally published at The Political Carnival, where GottaLaff blogs regularly.
Via former jailbird Judith Miller, that paragon of fine reporting, we get “news” that is simultaneously clearly laughable and utterly despicable:
In an interview with PJTV’s Bill Whittle on Friday, former New York Times reporter and now Fox News pundit Judith Miller had nothing [...]
The 15th anniversary of the U.S. ratification of the United Nations Convention Against Torture passed last week with little fanfare and virtually no press attention from the mainstream media here. But according to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), “U.S. policy continues to fall short of ensuring full compliance with the treaty.” For example, the organization said that an appendix to the Army Field Manual (AFM) can still facilitate cruel treatment of prisoners and detainees at home and abroad.
