Print Story: IOC admits Internet censorship deal with China on Yahoo! NewsIOC admits Internet censorship deal with China
By Nick Mulvenney
Wed Jul 30, 9:16 AM ET
Some International Olympic Committee officials cut a deal to let China block sensitive websites despite promises of unrestricted access, a senior IOC official admitted on Wednesday.
Persistent pollution fears and China's concerns about security in Tibet also remained problems for organizers nine days before the Games begin.
China had committed to providing media with the same freedom to report on the Games as they enjoyed at previous Olympics, but journalists have this week complained of finding access to sites deemed sensitive to its communist leadership blocked.
"I regret that it now appears BOCOG has announced that there will be limitations on website access during Games time," IOC press chief Kevan Gosper said, referring to Beijing's Olympic organizers.
"I also now understand that some IOC officials negotiated with the Chinese that some sensitive sites would be blocked on the basis they were not considered Games related," he said.
Attempts at the main press centre to access the website of Amnesty International, which released a report on Monday slamming China for failing to honor its Olympic human rights pledges, continued to prove fruitless by mid-week.
Other websites, including those relating to the banned spiritual group Falun Gong, are also inaccessible.
Beijing organizers said censorship would not stop journalists doing their jobs in reporting the Games.
"We are going to do our best to facilitate the foreign media to do their reporting work through the Internet," BOCOG spokesman Sun Weide told a news conference.
"I would remind you that Falun Gong is an evil, fake religion which has been banned by the Chinese government."
Reporters without Borders, a Paris-based media watchdog, said it was increasingly concerned that there would be many cases of censorship during the Olympics.
"We condemn the IOC's failure to do anything about this, and we are more skeptical about its ability to ensure that the media are able to report freely," the group said in a statement.
SMOG-WATCH
But the admission that the Internet will be partly censored is sure to lead to more criticism for the Olympics host nation, which is already deflecting barbs over everything from the quality of its air to its human rights record.
On Wednesday, Chinese experts said they were working on emergency plans to keep Olympic skies clear, including keeping cars off the roads in nearby provinces, but expected not to need them unless unusual pollution-trapping weather continued.
The city has already banned cars from roads on alternate days under an odd-and-even license plate scheme, suspended some factory production and opened new subway lines to try to clear its notorious pollution.
"The likelihood of needing stronger measures is very small," said Zhu Tong, a professor at Peking University and leader of a technical group advising Games organizers on air quality.
Slightly cooler temperatures and rain on Tuesday have thinned the haze, but with below-par air quality readings on several days since the emergency measures took effect on July 20, worries remain about athletes wheezing air laced with fumes and dust.
Experts said that given the size of Beijing, the volume of pollutants that flow into the city from other parts of China, and the short time period before the Games open on August 8, there was little more that could be done.
"In this short a time-frame, even if you took all the personal cars off the highway, you might see another 10 percent improvement, but it would be small," said Staci Simonich, an analytical chemist at Oregon State University who has been studying Beijing's air quality.
"The best thing that could happen during the Games is to have it rain every night," she said.
China also has other issues on its mind, including security in the restive region of Tibet, where official media said Chinese police had been mobilized to ensure "absolute security without a single lapse."
The remote region erupted into rioting in March that sparked protests across China's ethnic Tibetan areas and brought into focus international criticism of Beijing's policies on the issue.
The Tibet Daily announced on Wednesday tough policing during the Games on top of a sweeping security crackdown already in place. China is at pains to avoid any shows of defiance by pro-Tibet independence groups that could embarrass the government before a worldwide audience.
Politics in U.S. hiring: When is it improper? | csmonitor.comPolitics in U.S. hiring: When is it improper?
At the Justice Department, clear lines were crossed, report says.
By Peter Grier | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
and Uri Friedman | Contributor to The Christian Science Monitor
from the July 30, 2008 edition
Washington and Boston - Politics plays a part in hiring decisions throughout Washington. But by law, internal rules, and tradition, the selection of career officials at the Justice Department is supposed to be blind to matters of party.
That's because the application of federal justice is intended to be nonpartisan. Citizens have a right to expect equal treatment under the law, without regard to their political beliefs, registration, or yard signs.
Thus, by letting politics dictate the appointment of career prosecutors, immigration officials, and other government lawyers, senior aides to former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales may have crossed a red line, say some legal experts. And if the details in a just-released internal report are true, these aides crossed that line by a lot.
"Both Democratic and Republican administrations in the past have operated with the understanding that the Department of Justice in its career hiring process should not be politicized," says Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond, in Virginia.
This issue will be in the congressional spotlight Wednesday, when the Senate Judiciary Committee holds a hearing focusing on the new report, produced jointly by the Justice Department's Office of Inspector General and its Office of Professional Responsibility.
According to the report, released July 28, for nearly two years top advisers to then-Attorney General Gonzales discriminated against applicants for jobs who weren't Republican or conservative.
Monica Goodling, at the time the Justice Department's liaison to the White House, asked at least some applicants questions such as, "What is it about George W. Bush that makes you want to serve him?" says the report.
In researching the background of applicants for career prosecutor jobs, top Justice aides used Internet searches on such keywords as "Bush," "Gore," "Democrat," "spotted owl," "abortion," "gun," and "Florida recount," according to the report.
Ms. Goodling objected to hiring at least one prosecutor because she felt he was a Democrat, the report alleges. Others allegedly were hired because they were "solid Americans" on the GOP's core issues.
Goodling has acknowledged in sworn congressional testimony that she improperly took political considerations into account in hiring, but said this occurred in only a small number of cases.
Gonzales appeared unaware of the political nature of the hiring process in his department, according to investigators. In a statement Tuesday he said political considerations "should play no part in the hiring of career officials at the Department of Justice."
Of course, on one level political considerations are a main driver of hiring decisions in Washington. Presidents generally hire Cabinet secretaries and White House staff from their own party. The post of attorney general is political.
Under these top jobs, a small number of senior aides are also political hires. These allow chief executives to attempt to implement their policies and steer large bureaucratic government organizations.
But the vast majority of government workers serve in civil service posts where hiring is intended to be exempt from political influence. This prevents a wholesale disruption of government services when administrations change and is intended to guard against graft and cronyism.
With the Justice Department in particular, it is intended to help ensure that the scales of justice do not tip to left or right, politically speaking.
"When you're talking about the Justice Department, a group that's charged with upholding the law, it's particularly disturbing to hear allegations that they're violating the law," says Maureen O'Rourke, dean of Boston University School of Law.
Previous investigations have alleged that politics played a role in appointments to Justice honors and intern programs. The nearly simultaneous firing of eight US attorneys also remains a live issue. While these top regional jobs are political appointments, critics allege that the mass US attorney firing was driven by improperly political reasons, such as an attempt to sway particular prosecutions.
"Some worry that too much politics has crept into the professional, get-the-job-done level," says Ms. O'Rourke. "That's not a glamorous issue that would make it to the forefront of the election campaign, but I think it's an issue that the next president will have to deal with."
As to Justice, the question of who knew what remains relevant. Justice investigators concluded that the White House political affairs office recommended a majority of the immigration judge candidates that Goodling and Kyle Sampson, former chief of staff to Gonzales, considered hiring.
Then there is the issue of whether, and how, the improper hiring might be undone. "Can you purge the people hired improperly?" says Professor Tobias.
Current Attorney General Michael Mukasey said he was "of course disturbed" by the new report's allegations. He said he would make sure "that the conduct described in this report does not occur again at the department."
Print Story: 2002 Justice memo OKs CIA interrogation tactics on Yahoo! News2002 Justice memo OKs CIA interrogation tactics
By PAMELA HESS and LARA JAKES JORDAN, Associated Press Writer
The Justice Department in 2002 told the CIA that its interrogators would be safe from prosecution for violations of anti-torture laws if they believed "in good faith" that harsh techniques used to break prisoners' will would not cause "prolonged mental harm."
That heavily censored memo, released Thursday, approved the CIA's harsh interrogation techniques method by method, but warned that if the circumstances changed, interrogators could be running afoul of anti-torture laws.
The Aug. 1, 2002, legal opinion signed by then-Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee was issued the same day he wrote a memo for then-White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales defining torture as only those "extreme acts" that cause pain similar in intensity to that caused by death or organ failure.
The Bybee legal opinion defining torture was withdrawn more than two years later. Justice spokesman Peter Carr said Thursday the interrogation techniques currently authorized by the Bush administration are legal. It's unclear, however, which of those outlined in the second memo are still being used. Attorney General Michael Mukasey has refused to address whether waterboarding, for example, is legal since the CIA no longer uses it.
Waterboarding is a form of simulated drowning that critics call torture. CIA Director Michael Hayden banned waterboarding in 2006 but government officials have said it remains a possibility if approved by the attorney general, the CIA chief and the president.
Secret Bush administration memos authorizing harsh interrogation techniques have been made public starting in 2004, when the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal revealed detainee mistreatment. Thursday's release adds to the growing record of the still secret program launched after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
The new Bybee memo was obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union along with two other previously unreleased documents dealing with the CIA's interrogation program. The Bybee memo specifically approved proposed interrogation techniques that were devised for use against al-Qaida suspects who were resistant to traditional questioning methods.
The standards used to judge how physically rough an interrogation could be are blacked out. But interrogations that stress a detainee psychologically or emotionally were not allowed to cause "prolonged mental harm." That was defined as harm lasting months or even years after the interrogation.
The memo suggests psychiatrists or psychologists should be consulted prior to interrogations to assess the likely mental health effect on the prisoner.
"The healthier the individual, the less likely that the use of any one procedure or set of procedures will result in prolonged mental harm," the memo states.
The new documents indicate that senior Bush administration officials were aware of the controversial and potentially problematic use of certain interrogation methods, including waterboarding.
In a second memo, dated Jan. 28, 2003, then-CIA Director George Tenet authorized CIA officers to interrogate a terror suspect using an "enhanced technique" and ordered a record to be kept of it as the interrogation was happening. It was not clear whether such a record would be taken via notes, videotape or audiotape, but it was to include the "nature and duration of each such technique employed, the identities of those present" and other factors.
Tenet's memo also authorized the use of both "enhanced techniques" and "standard techniques," and said no other methods could be used "unless otherwise approved by headquarters."
Jameel Jaffer, director of the ACLU's national security project, said the Tenet document suggests the CIA at least contemplated techniques that went beyond waterboarding.
He said the interrogation records, if released, could be used as evidence by defendants in military tribunals at Guantanamo to prove they were tortured or coerced.
A third document released Thursday is undated but likely was written in 2004, well after the last confirmed use of waterboarding against a CIA prisoner. It addresses a planned interrogation, saying that it should go forward only with the clear understanding of all policies pertaining to the treatment of prisoners.
That unsigned memo defends interrogations but warns those authorizing them to be fully aware of the then-emerging international and U.S. legal debate surrounding the issue. It appears to serve as groundwork to defend the legality of interrogations — including waterboarding — if necessary.
"Intelligence gained using the interrogation techniques has saved Americans lives and property," the unsigned memo states.
It pointed to the Aug. 2002 Justice Department opinion that concluded "interrogation techniques including the waterboard do not violate the torture statute."
For several years, the Bush administration relied on the findings in that 2002 opinion to maintain its interrogations did not amount to torture — and therefore had not violated any U.S. or international treaties on how detainees are treated.
However, the one-page undated memo highlights legislation by Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., prohibiting cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of detainees. The amendment was approved by the Senate in June 2004 and was part of a 2005 military budget bill that became law in October 2004.
It also notes a 2004 Supreme Court decision — which found that terror suspects held at Guantanamo Bay could challenge their detention in U.S. courts — that "raises possible concerns about judicial review of the program, and these issues."
The Bush administration maintains waterboarding was legal when it was used by CIA interrogators in 2002 and 2003 against top al-Qaida detainees Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri. CIA Director Hayden said waterboarding was used, in part, because of widespread belief among U.S. intelligence officials that more catastrophic attacks were imminent.
