"most open and transparant"

[solarbird]

In case you missed it, Chief Executive Obama is pushing for more retroactive law in order to suppress a large amount of torture evidence that's in the process of being ordered released by courts. (It's currently in appeals to the US Supreme Court, which is expected to order the evidence released.) Anticipating this ruling, a bill has been tossed together in Congress for Mr. Obama by supporters to carve an exception into FISA law. The bill is here. Greenwald asks:

Just imagine if any other country did this. Imagine if a foreign government were accused of systematically torturing and otherwise brutally abusing detainees in its custody for years, and there was ample photographic evidence proving the extent and brutality of the abuse. Further imagine that the country's judiciary -- applying decades-old transparency laws -- ruled that the government was legally required to make that evidence public. But in response, that country's President demanded that those transparency laws be retroactively changed for no reason other than to explicitly empower him to keep the photographic evidence suppressed, and a compliant Congress then immediately passed a new law empowering the President to suppress that evidence. What kind of a country passes a law that has no purpose other than to empower its leader to suppress evidence of the torture it inflicted on people?

So much for "the most open and transparent [administration] in history."

In the meantime, in "completely fucking out of touch" news, have this lovely tidbit, re-reported by Reason, where former Chief Executive Bush and President Clinton "admitted [on Monday] they had no idea the U.S. was implementing a new rule Monday that would require Canadians and Americans to have passports to cross the border." Mr. Bush in particular seemed confused, saying, "I thought we were making good progress on using a driver's licence to cross the border. What happened to the E-Z card?" This was at a joint address in Toronto. They were Shocked! Shocked! to hear about this travesty. Mr. Clinton promised to do something about it, which I hope the good people of Toronto knew better than to take seriously.

Comments

[llachglin.livejournal.com]

Actually, enhanced ID is apparently allowed, because a coworker of mine spent two hours failing to get one today because of the huge lines and the one-hour interview that's required.

All of this to get in and out of Canada, which honestly should not even require a stop at the border.

[shadesofmauve]

As far as I'm aware, enhanced ID is entirely at the discretion of the individual states. I know that much of Washington state's enhanced ID program was worked out between Canada and the state, with only oversight by the feds.

I would so like to never hear about Bush again. That he's totally ignorant of major policy changes planned while he was in office is not really a suprise, unfortunatley.

[solarbird]

Yes. The Cascadian passport (lulz) is a Washington State-British Columbia-and-I-think-Oregon arrangement. Idaho may be in on it too. But it's obviously most important for us and BC.

[dustin-00.livejournal.com]

Apparently Obama would rather I give to the ACLU now.