political life in a torture state

[solarbird]

Life inside a CIA "black site" - a detainee never charged and eventually released testifies about the American and Jordanian torture regimes. The Americans used sleep dep, cold cell, and isolation; the Jordanians beat on him a lot. He says he preferred the Jordanians.

Senator Reid is, of course, respecting the hold placed by GOP Senator Lindsay Graham (SC) on a bill that would pass (yet more) law against this sort of thing, by extending the Army Field Manual rules on abuse of prisoners to the CIA. That's because Senator Graham supports the programme described above. (Mr. Bush has also promised a veto of any such legislation.) (More here.)

Compare and contrast this as you like to Senator Reid's choice to ignore Senator Dodd's hold on the FISA bill with retroactive amnesty for telecom industry surveillance lawbreaking.

Also, CIA agent John Kiriakou described the American torture system in detail, on ABC, then NBC; his description is recapped in Harper's Magazine. This is also the sort of hold honoured by Senator Reid.

For the record, I sent out all my faxes yesterday. (Yes, i actually sent out paper faxes. Yes, it costs money and is a pain in the ass. But I've heard they're the least ignored. Sadly, I can't confirm that.)

Comments

[angharads-house.livejournal.com]

Paper faxes, oddly enough, may indicate higher economic standing on the part of the sender, particularly if they are being sent from a residential address. Guesswork prior to coffee, please take as such.

[solarbird]

I'm thinking it would indicate an older age group, which tends to indicate the same thing in turn, of course. Faxes are a craptastic technology - I loathe them - and the only reason I have one is that they're still the absolute standard in the real estate industry. But the baby boomers and older - the people with most of the money and power right now - know and understand them and I accordingly speculate that they're an identifier.

[angharads-house.livejournal.com]

"an older age group.... most of the money and power right now..."

Pretty much my line of thinking too, but expressed more clearly. Where fax machines shine is in being able to convey a recognisable signature; at least up here, the courts have held that a fax transmission of a signed and initialled contract is good secondary evidence of that contract. Courier firms, on the other hand, would wish to disabuse us of that notion ^_^

Have long been aware that it is trivially easy to spoof the header line on a fax transmission, but the check and balance on that is the receiving machine's daily journal.