He had a conscience, he just didn't feel compelled to use it

On the Rachel Maddow show Tuesday night, Philip Zelikow discussed his lone memo of dissent among all the pro-torture memos that floated around in the Bush administration.

At the time he was counsel for Condoleezza Rice. When he saw the torture memos (courtesy of The Huffington Post), he was of the opinion that they represented a "distorted view of the law" (shocking), and felt compelled to do something about it. And what was his grand gesture? Another memo. Forget the fact that the operation was classified, so only a few people even knew of its existence, so that only a few people would see the memos in the first place. Zelikow was so bothered by the twisted representation of the law, that he wrote down his own version. I don't exactly picture Jerry Maguire's midnight mission statement that turns up in the mailboxes of his entire company. I picture a few sheets of paper on government letterhead, sent to a select group of people.

In all fairness, Zelikow says that the administration tried to squash his attempts to shine the light of truth into the murky Bush darkness. But when Rachel asked him if he would have done something more drastic, like resigning? No, he said. It wasn't like that, apparently. It was really just a cordial disagreement between some lawyers who interpreted the law (for which there was really no precedent) differently.

And then we have House Minority Leader John Boehner confirming that the "harsh interrogation tactics" (or insert other euphemism of choice) are really just torture techniques. Boehner disagrees with the decision to leak the documents. He thinks that those unfriendly to the US could take advantage of this information:

When it comes to what our interrogation techniques are going to be or should be, I'm not going to disclose, nor should anyone have a conversation about what those techniques ought to be. It's inappropriate. All it does is give our enemies more information about us than they need.

So... we should just not talk about the illegal things we're doing? Well, that mindset certainly works in other areas of our government, not just our defense agencies. At least we're keeping it consistent.

another reason not to fly

As the country is readying for Thanksgiving plans, the government is getting ready to deal with the swarms of holiday travelers passing through airports. And as usual, it looks like it’s going to be a sub-par job.

Back in July, a local news station discovered that for almost 5 hours, the security checkpoints at Sky Harbor airport in Phoenix, Arizona were unmanned, except for one minimum wage earner who was often caught sleeping. At the end of September, fellow libertarian Citizen X waited at the Indianapolis airport for five hours because the TSA neglected to clean up after itself following a training session and closed down the airport when “bomb-like materials” were found (which, of course, turned out to belong to the TSA). There are accusations flying around that the TSA has tipped off airport security screeners about covert testing, to warn them so that they pass the tests. It doesn’t seem to help, though, because the Government Accountability Office (GAO) says that 19 airports have failed to notice testers with bomb-making materials slipping through checkpoints.

I’m not a big fan of airplanes to begin with. Going to school in Chicago with my parents’ living in Cleveland has meant quarterly plane rides to visit. It is an hour, hour and fifteen minute flight at the most between the two cities, but it has not been uncommon to spend four to five hours on a single trip, which is almost the amount of time it takes for me to drive the distance. Further, any people who cross onto the property of Midway airport via car are subject to having their vehicle searched, just by being at the airport. It’s as though airports are a 4^th amendment-free zone. This is, of course, nothing surprising. There has been a steady decline into complacency. Travelers accept that they will be subjected to government intrusion, and feel that it is worth it, that they will be protected in case 9/11 happens to repeat itself. (I wonder how many fellow travelers share Mr. Tancredo’s sentiments.) Donald Kerr tells us that we need to forget about our old concepts of privacy, that “privacy can no longer mean anonymity.”

Back in 2001, my political science teacher told the class that we wouldn’t know whether or not the terrorists of 9/11 had succeeded for several years. It wouldn’t be until we lived in constant fear of it happening again, that we’d see their plan of terror had worked. I guess it’s worked.

[On ancient Athens]: In the end, more than freedom, they wanted security. They wanted a comfortable life, and they lost it all – security, comfort, and freedom. When the Athenians finally wanted not to give to society but for society to give to them, when the freedom they wished for most was freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free and was never free again. – Edward Gibbon