Here's the 22-cosponsor list:

Rep Blumenauer, Earl [OR-3] - 7/7/2004
Rep Conyers, John, Jr. [MI-14] - 7/7/2004
Rep Filner, Bob [CA-51] - 9/9/2004
Rep Frank, Barney [MA-4] - 7/7/2004
Rep Grijalva, Raul M. [AZ-7] - 9/21/2004
Rep Hinchey, Maurice D. [NY-22] - 9/9/2004
Rep Honda, Michael M. [CA-15] - 7/19/2004
Rep Jackson-Lee, Sheila [TX-18] - 7/7/2004
Rep Kucinich, Dennis J. [OH-10] - 9/9/2004
Rep Lee, Barbara [CA-9] - 7/19/2004
Rep Lewis, John [GA-5] - 7/7/2004
Rep McCollum, Betty [MN-4] - 7/19/2004
Rep McDermott, Jim [WA-7] - 7/7/2004
Rep Millender-McDonald, Juanita [CA-37] - 7/19/2004
Rep Miller, George [CA-7] - 7/19/2004
Rep Owens, Major R. [NY-11] - 7/7/2004
Rep Pastor, Ed [AZ-4] - 9/9/2004
Rep Sanders, Bernard [VT] - 9/9/2004
Rep Schakowsky, Janice D. [IL-9] - 7/19/2004
Rep Van Hollen, Chris [MD-8] - 9/9/2004
Rep Waxman, Henry A. [CA-30] - 7/7/2004
Rep Woolsey, Lynn C. [CA-6] - 9/9/2004

It's depressing to see some of the names that aren't on it. If I still lived in Nanci Pelosi's district, I'd be on the phone right now.

Oh, and for those who are interested in reading more about the Arar case from a perspective that isn't necessarily purely American, the Canadian wing of the blogosphere has had some *great* stuff about it over the past year or so. Start with pogge and go from there.

-J

(email included here; please feel free to borrow parts if it will help you write your legislators.)

Dear Representative Sabo:

I am writing you to encourage you to vote against Section 3032 and 3033 of H.R. 10, the “9/11 Recommendations Implementation Act of 2004”. These sections would attempt to legalize extraordinary rendition, the outsourcing of torture to other countries. The course of action that these sections propose are unfair, inhumane, and immoral.

Unfair, inhumane, and immoral are not words that I have ever associated with you, which is why I have been voting for you every election that I have lived in my current residence.

Representative Edward Markey, from Massachusetts, is planning on offering an amendment to H.R. 10 that would replace those sections and take a strong stand against extraordinary rendition. Representative Betty McCollum, your colleague from St. Paul, has cosponsored a bill to this effect with Rep. Markey. I encourage you greatly to get in touch with Rep. Markey and Rep. McCollum to find out how to also become a co-sponsor of this action.

I look forward to hearing back from you.

Thank you.

I strongly believe in the principle of policing your own. I am a Republican and a regular advocate for the Republican Party. You should consider this post a kind of 'toughlove'. As such I have some harsh words for the sponsors of this bill. This portion of the bill is morally, ethically, and politically wrong. It may be that you did not know all of what you were sponsoring (the bill is 300+ pages). But you should know now, and you should take action to change it.

Any right-winger who starts arguing that this won't be so bad should be pointed directly at this post.

Given the timeliness of this issue, consider phoning as well as emailing. Hurry, most congressional offices close at 6PM.

The phone numbers are easy to find on the house.gov site.

Ever since I got a form letter from Sen. Boxer's office that they were unable to read my letter because it was destroyed during the antrhrax scare, I've always doubled-up with a letter and an email. Or, in this case, a phone call.

As to how they had known I had written, I can only imagine that they imaged the envelopes before they destroyed them.

(What can I say? I'm new in town.)

So I sent Rep. Markey a letter of congratulation.

That is, to give the torturers what they want to hear, and thus to confirm their view of the world. "Confessions" have nothing to do with the truth, as the post so eloquently notes.

Write your Senators twice, for me: I'm a Canuck, and thus don't count.

Yikes. Scary stuff here. I am now going to attend to the cranky baby and think about something less nauseating.

Just phoned and emailed. I'm really surprised to find that she's not already on board with Markey.

You're right, and they do acknowledge that in the opening graf:

Please note that after September 11, 2001, regular mail sent to a member's Washington, DC office may no longer be the best way to contact a member of Congress. Faxes get through, but expect many redials. Unless you have an email address for a staffer, forget about sending email directly. One method that does work, if your member uses it, is to send them email using the web-based form on their web site.

Jon, not Joe

It gets ever-harder to stay polite.

>Democrats tried to strike the provision in a daylong
>House Judiciary Committee meeting,
>but it survived on a party-line vote.

One side is the party of torture;
one side is against torture.

Could it possibly BE any starker???

I don't understand this bit. Does that mean they were instructed to vote a particular way by their parties, or that the Republicans had more people than the Democrats?

That’s where we stand now. Extraordinary rendition takes the last limitations off what can be done to you....

If you’ve kept somebody locked up for a long time on grounds that turn out to be groundless, it’ll be embarrassing to go on keeping them, and even more embarrassing to let them go. But if you ship them off to some hellhole in Syria and they never come back, they cease to be a problem.

As Dorothy notes here (link from Katherine's comments). If I do write to my congresscritters, I will simply paste in the full text of Dorothy's post, possibly adding emphasis to the final words:

But then you remember.

This is the American Way.

And you voted for it.

So I wrote friends and relatives who live in other districts and asked them to write their representatives.

This so stinks.

Sent this out on my email scandal sheet.

In any case, if you want to read more about Habib's case, go to

http://www6.sbs.com.au/dateline/index.php?page=archive&daysum=2004-07-07

which is a transcript from a news programme here called Dateline, which broke the story about Habib's "rendition" to Egypt, and asks pointed questions about whether or not our government knew about this procedure.

We're facing a national election on the 9th. I'm sorely tempted to contact my own local representative to ask if our government has any plans to protest or otherwise object to the US government's plan to legalise this rendition business. I'm guessing they don't. They keep talking about how crucially, utterly important it is to Australia to be part of this alliance we have with the US, even if it means going along with the most reprehensible, horrific deeds imaginable.

I can't vote them out fast enough.

Perhaps they didn't read the bill, perhaps they didn't understand all of its provisions (it's over 300 pages). Perhaps they merely wanted to have their name on something labeled "9/11" so they could say they're four-square against terrorism in their next election campaigns.

They should be reminded that the voters are watching them, and the voters will base their choice in the next election on how the representative treats this bill, and Markey's amendment.

============

Here's the text of my letter (hardcopy and email):

The Honorable Charles F. Bass, II
United States House of Representatives
2421 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515-2902

Dear Congressman Bass,

I'm absolutely stunned that the House would consider making torture legal, as is apparently being done in Section 3032 and 3033 of H.R. 10, the "9/11 Recommendations Implementation Act of 2004." The provision would require the Secretary of Homeland Security to issue new regulations to exclude from the protection of the U.N. Convention Against Torture and Other Forms of Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, any suspected terrorist.

Torture of prisoners, no matter what they are "suspected" of, is always wrong; we as Americans don't do it, and we don't allow others do it in our name. We should be an example to other countries as we uphold our own ideals.

I expect that you will vote to support Congressman Markey's amendment to this bill, to remove the shocking and unAmerican provision making torture legal, or, if an amendment decisively rejecting torture is not included in the bill, to vote to defeat it.

Sincerely,

James D. Macdonald

FWIW, I can back up the assertion that reports on "torture training" are right, and say how I know it: my brother is Army Special Forces and went through that training.

As far as I can tell, the best way to get information from somebody is to not even let them know you think they might be a suspect. Heck, to not even let them know you're watching them. Torture, as others have noted, just results in Confessions. As any lapsed Catholic knows, those aren't worth jack.

***

Dear Representative Berkley;

I am writing to urge your support for Massachusetts Congressman Edward Markey's amendment to H.R. 10, which would outlaw the practice of "extraordinary rendition," or remanding defendants to other nations for torture and interrogation.

Not only is the practice of extracting confessions via torture morally repugnant--it's also completely ineffective. I expect that you will vote to support Congressman Markey's amendment to this bill, to remove the shocking and unAmerican provision making torture legal, or, if an amendment decisively rejecting torture is not included in the bill, to vote to defeat it.

Thank you for your time, and for your continued service to the great state of Nevada.

Sincerely,

me.

Thank you. It's been a very hard week, and I felt like I **had** to glean out the specifics to write this letter, but I can't think today.

Thanks for the boost--

Many of them are said to be the relatives of suspected terrorists. If Mr. Terrorist is not home when they come to arrest him, they grab his wife or sister instead.

Which relates back to "torture is only useful as a form of intimidation or revenge."

Rumsfeld 'Gave Secret OK' (emphasis mine)

Y'all've heard of Algeria? French, north Africa, 1950s? Remember? Paratroopers, city fighting, terrorists, insurgents, civilian population? The whole deal.

Maybe one reason the French were so reluctant to join the current adventure in Iraq was they'd had some experience in how those things can turn out.

The French decided the way to get intelligence on the insurgents was with torture. Special courts were set up to issue torture warrants under strict guidelines. They were supposed to be issued only under extraordinary circumstances, for the most serious cases. In the first year there were only a hundred or so. Within two years, thousands were being issued.

Do you know what happened? The hard-core terrorists started betraying their moderate countrymen to the French, to put them under torture, to remove any element from society that would oppose their hard-core goals.

And do you know how well that torture worked? Not at all. The French spent their time chasing torture-induced fantasies. The population as a whole got more resistant, not less. The French lost. (Yeah, yeah, all the French jokes. We didn't do a whole lot better than they did in Vietnam, now, did we?)

I'm sure we used torture in Vietnam as well. In fact, I think that was one of the things Kerry testified about, back then.

I agree. Torture is usually counterproductive. This is true even when done by professionals; and certainly true when done by amateurs (as in Abu Gharib).

Strange bedfellows, in that your impressively professional opinion overlaps that of Pontecorvo's agitprop "Battle of Algiers."

If I may overgeneralize, the Corporate and government bureaucratic world lightly tortures almost all of their employees, who therefore tell Management exactly what management wants to hear, instead of what management needs to know.

That's my opinion, as a survivor of several decades of semihostile workplaces at Boeing, Rockwell, Lockheed, Hughes, and on contracts with Army, Navy, Air Force, FAA, and NASA.

I still wish that I could have saved the Space Shuttle for killing astronauts, had I been able to overcome torture from above (executive management clinging to falsified budgets and schedules) and below by the pathological lying idiots at Rockwell's Space Transportation Systems Division in Downey, who preemptively accused me of plagiarism to deflect attention from their criminal fraud, and continue to defame me to this day in the science fiction and space advocacy communities. Though not (I think) on the SFWA web domain (in ways that you know better than I).

I hate that things have come to the sort of pass where it is necessary to call out the troops to get a measure like this defeated.

On torture. Pain does increase one's openness to suggestion, as I think was touched on in another thread. I'm thinking of labor as a personal example. When finding out about natural (no-drugs) labor & childbirth, one thing consistently came up -- anything you suggest to a woman in transition will be acceded to. Then I tried it and sure enough -- you are in an altered state and everything external is far away and doesn't mean much and all that matters is getting through this breath. And the next breath.
What got me through labor was knowing the pain would end, and each "attack" (contraction) was helping the baby to arrive.

But if I try to imagine being in a state where I didn't know if the pain would end ...

Later, after her son was born, she told her husband about this. "There's no window in that room," he told her.

She insisted there was, until he actually took her into the room and showed her the blank walls. The room had no windows at all. I think she'd concur with your statement.

I hope that principled representatives from both sides of the aisle will take a stand for implementing the 9/11 intelligence reforms exactly as recommended by the 9/11 commission. The extra provisions in the House bill are morally wrong and a threat to human rights, but that's not all. By bringing back failed policies, and by distracting attention away from the real intelligence reforms that are urgently needed, they undermine progress in the war on terror. It's almost as if the provisions are so bad, they can be explained only as a wedge issue designed to dare people to vote against it.

U.S. Representative John Linder
1727 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515-1007

Dear Mr. Linder,

As a libertarian and a supporter of your Fair Tax Plan, I am proud to live in your district and to have voted for you in the past election. I am writing to you today because of my shock and dismay over Sections 3032 and 3033 of H.R. 10, the “9/11 Recommendations Implementation Act.”

These sections relax our compliance with the United Nations Convention Against Torture, and permit the removal of any alien to any country regardless of the alien's country of origin, crimes charged, or probable consequence. Particularly disturbing is this clause in Section 3032:

3) BURDEN OF PROOF- The revision shall also ensure that the burden of proof is on the applicant for withholding or deferral of removal under the Convention to establish by clear and convincing evidence that he or she would be tortured if removed to the proposed country of removal.

The idea that a prisoner of the United States, with limited access to information or legal recourse, would have to prove future torture in order to avoid that torture is in grotesque contradiction to our country's moral foundations. Presumption of innocence and respect for human dignity are just two of the principles we are fighting for around the world. The revisions further negate the due process of law by removing the authority of any court to review the revisions themselves or any claims made under the Convention Against Torture until it is too late to stop the removal.

Torture is always wrong, regardless of a prisoner's strategic value or suspected crimes. Just as we expect other countries not to torture Americans, we as Americans must never engage in torture, nor allow our prisoners to be sent to other countries for the purpose of torture. What we lose, in courage and moral determination, will always be greater to us than any dubious information we may gain. We must set an example to other countries by upholding our own ideals.

As my Congressman, I know that you will do the right thing. I expect that you will support Congressman Markey's amendment to this bill, to remove the shocking and unAmerican provision making torture legal, or, if an amendment decisively rejecting torture is not included in the bill, that you will vote to defeat it. Thank you for your service.

Sincerely,

Stephen Eley

So it is important you here, now, and give whatever little bit you can to help take back the House. Your little bit added to all the other little bits can be huge.

MKK

I've even heard of bad clauses deleted by \both/ houses but mysteriously reappearing in conference, although I can't cite instances. I guess we do what we can do and hope for less than the worst.

I am trying to call on the forces of blogger triumphalism and blogger trendiness to get the press--outside of Dana Priest of WaPo, who was already covering it without my help--to pay attention to this story. Like the CBS memos, only important.

(Part of this strategy is whoring for links, so that this story shows up on the blog tracking sites (blogdex, etc.) that some of the press reads. In that vein, I have an update here and more will follow.)

Unfortunately I don't like my chances, as Left Blogistan is not as good as Right Blogistan at incessantly fixating on one story, and Right Blogistan is better at completely ignoring stories that make their side look bad. About 2% of the links that first post got are from right-of-center bloggers.

But the post has already gotten a lot more attention than I would have expected, and I am very grateful for that.

One more thing: if anyone's Congressperson gives them a clear answer on whether or not they support Markey's amendment, could y'all email me the information at katherinesblog@hotmail.com? I'll post the responses if I get a decent number.

I didn't see the point in telling him he won't have my vote, come hell or high water, and that my registration is because I have a much more vested interest in whom the Republicans field in the primaries, than I do the Dems, but hey, if he wants to think I've been a lockstep voter up to now... let 'im.

TK

Note that the bill is HR4674, not HR4764 as stated in Obsidian Wings excellent 10/1 update. Those transpositions will kill you every time.

I'll be checking the co-sponsor list to see if my letter to my congressman, Martin Meehan [MA-5], bears fruit.

The list now shows a 23rd co-sponsor:
Rep Davis, Susan A. [CA-53] - 9/30/2004

When it first broke last year, it prodded me into writing several letters to cabinet ministers, calling for a public inquiry into the matter.

The public inquiry is now underway in Ottawa, looking into the Canadian government's involvement in the matter. Unfortunately, a Canadian inquiry can only compel Canadians to testify and the U.S. State Department has declined to participate. Apparently the State Department is conducting its own internal review of the case. If you're writing to your congresspeople, you might want to ask them to find out how that review is coming along.

Another tactic I've found useful is to buttonhole politicians in person. You tend to find out more from the real live individual than from any form-letter you get in the mail. Since it's election season right now, the pols should be out mainstreeting and easy to corner. Pick a moment when the cameras aren't watching to make your moove. That way, the politician doesn't feel the need to get defensive.

And if you don't agree with that assessment of the relative importance of substantive effort and macho flash, you're probably a liberal elitist (warning: strong language in link).

No problem, Larry. You might still want to send him a note asking what took him so long. :)

But it points out a real problem: what if you're a sane and rational and decent and ambitious person, and honestly believe that you'll do the country good by leading it (o.k. that last describes nearly every politician and so is redundant), and it looks like the only way to get elected by a taurocoprophile population is to add enough b.s. to your message that the taste will be acceptable to them?

A long-winded way of saying, "Is it possible to avoid coming down to their level when that's where the fight is, and fighting seems to be the talent the public values most?"
==================================================
"Either this intelligence agrees with our reasons for invading Iraq, in which case it's redundant but very welcome, or it contradicts our reasons for invading Iraq, in which case it is Evildoer stuff."
---George Bush, Caliph of Bagdhad, at the Library of Alexandria, VA.

Luckily, that's not the world we live in.

10/16/2004:
Senate disagreed to House amendment, agreed to request for conference, and appointed conferees. Collins; Lott; DeWine; Roberts; Voinovich; Sununu; Coleman; Lieberman; Levin; Durbin; Rockefeller; Graham FL; Lautenberg. pursuant to the orders of October 10 and 11, 2004.

So what?

Not to worry. It wasn't going on then. Under Clinton, "rendition" meant going overseas to fetch suspected terrorists back to the USA to stand trial here as criminals, even if we didn't have an extradition treaty with the foreign government where the suspect was located.

The pro-torture faction likes to cite Presidential Decision Directives 39 and 62 in their desperate "Clinton did it first!" argument. Unfortunately for their case, those PDDs don't support their claims.

Here's Louis Freeh testifying on rendition in 1999:

"During the past decade, the United States has successfully obtained custody of 13 suspected international terrorists from foreign countries to stand trial in the United States for acts or planned acts of terrorism against our citizens. Based on its policy of treating terrorists as criminals and applying the rule of law against them, the United States is one of the most visible and effective forces in identifying, locating, and apprehending terrorists on American soil and overseas. The majority of terrorist renditions have been accomplished with the cooperation of the foreign government in which the terrorist suspect was located. Among the individuals recently returned to the United States by this process have been Mir Amal Kasi, who shot and killed two Central Intelligence Agency employees in Langley, Virginia, in 1993, and who was rendered from Afghanistan to the United States in 1997, and Tsutomo Shirosaki, a Japanese Red Army member, who was rendered to the United States in 1996, more than 10 years after firing rockets at the United States Diplomatic Compound in Jakarta, Indonesia. Every time the United States obtains custody of a terrorist for trial, we send a clear message to terrorists everywhere that no matter how long it takes, no matter the difficulty, we will find you and you will be held accountable for your actions."

Rendition Torture was introduced from the Whitehouse by the Clinton Administration.

No, it wasn't.

Do the research.

I have.

And what kind of info do you need for a debate? What search terms did you use? What information were you looking for that you didn't find?

Really, it's nice that they're planning to debate (I presume) Extraordinary Rendition in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. I wonder what information he was after?

Mmmmm.

No Mmmmmm.

Friday, November 4th
All Day Oral Interp : All High Schools: Debate @ WHS

Saturday, November 5th
All Day Oral Interp : All High Schools: @ WHS
All Day Oral Interp : All High Schools: Debate @ RHS

Tuesday, November 8th
3:30PM Oral Interp : All High Schools: Novice Debate Tournament@ LHS

Geoff Crooks

looks like he's had a similar education.