Who will rein in the CIA if not the Supreme Court ?

By refusing to hear the appeal from Khaled El-Masri, an illegal detainee of the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency), the US Supreme Court may have passed up an opportunity to rein in the CIA, and restore faith in the American way of life. El-Masri had appealed after the decision of lower courts not to hear his case against the CIA on national security grounds.

Last week, the New York Times revealed that a 2005 Justice Department memo endorsed interrogation techniques were some of the harshest ever used by the CIA. They included head-slapping, exposure to freezing temperatures and simulated drowning, known as water-boarding.

That was torture by any interpretation of the term, but frankly pales in its audacity and brutality when compared to the alleged torture of El-Masri under a CIA program called “extraordinary rendition”.

To get around US federal and international conventions, the CIA is said to have invented the concept of “extraordinary rendition”, the unlawful kidnapping of foreign citizens, and their transfer to secret prisons in countries that have little regard for human rights and legal niceties.

Suspects are detained and interrogated either by US personnel at US-run detention facilities outside US sovereign territory or, alternatively, are handed over to the custody of foreign agents for interrogation, according to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). In both instances, interrogation methods are employed that do not comport with federal and internationally recognized standards, ACLU added.

El-Masri, a German citizen of Lebanese origin, by his account was abducted in Macedonia in 2003 and flown to Afghanistan for interrogation, under the “extraordinary rendition” program. The 44-year-old alleges he was tortured during five months in detention, four months of which were spent in a prison in Kabul, Afghanistan, nicknamed the "salt pit".

On his flight to Afghanistan, he says, he was stripped, beaten, shackled, made to wear "diapers", drugged and chained to the floor of the plane.

By his account, he was finally released in Albania after the Americans realized they had got the wrong man. For a copy of El-Masri’s petition before US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia see here.

There are a number of people kidnapped tortured by the CIA under “extraordinary rendition”, according to civil liberties unions. Some were probably terrorists, but that does not make “extraordinary rendition” justified. If the US and other free countries do not follow norms of fair play, detention, and interrogation, and instead look for subterfuges, they will lose the high moral ground they have taken with regard to the terrorists. The free world is appearing to be just a brutal as the terrorists.

Rather than give the CIA cover under the "state secrets" privilege, US courts should have seized the opportunity to bring some accountability into the CIA and the US government.

There are dangerous man at large, and not all of them are Islamic terrorists. Some of them are in the pay of the US government.

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They torture prisoners in Myanmar, Iran, and yes the US

They torture prisoners in Myanmar, Iran, and yes the US

The revelations this week by the New York Times on the use of torture on prisoners by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) shows once again that when a people are threatened by an enemy, fear brings out the worst in human beings.

The disclosure by the New York Times, and subsequent reactions also show how democracy does not seem to be working too well in the US.

The interrogation techniques endorsed by a 2005 Justice Department memo were some of the harshest ever used by the CIA, according to the New York Times. They included head-slapping, exposure to freezing temperatures and simulated drowning, known as water-boarding.

It is surprising that elected representatives of the people knew nothing about it. Democrats on Capitol Hill demanded to see the classified memorandums, disclosed Thursday by The New York Times, that gave the Central Intelligence Agency expansive approval in 2005 for harsh interrogation techniques, according to a follow-up report in the New York Times.

“I find it unfathomable that the committee tasked with oversight of the CIA’s detention and interrogation program would be provided more information by The New York Times than by the Department of Justice,” Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, a West Virginia Democrat and chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, wrote to the acting attorney general, Peter D. Keisler, asking for copies of all opinions on interrogation since 2004, the New York Times said.

More frightening is that in the name of fighting terror, the President of the US and his officials in government have consolidated, nay arrogated power, by a series of laws and regulations, including laws on surveillance of people, and a domestic spying program.

Some of these new rules even exclude Capitol Hill from knowing what is going on. A pet line already making the rounds is that a disclosure of interrogation techniques would help terrorists train their cadres to resist these techniques.

Once again US President George Bush invoked the potent imagery of terror on Friday. Voice of America quoted the President as saying "The American people expect their government to take action to protect them from further attack. And that is exactly what this government is doing. And that is exactly what we will continue to do." Bush however said that interrogations were conducted by trained professionals who did not use torture.

The alleged torture of prisoners, and some other measures by the Bush government, that effectively circumvent civil rights, are grist for the propaganda machines of the terrorists. One of the aims of terrorism is to expose what it believes is the dark under-belly of democracy. The torture and abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib , the detentions at Guantanamo Bay, and now the report of the tortures by the CIA help reinforce these views.

The free world can hold the moral high ground against its opponents only if it shows that civility, decency, human rights, and democracy will never be compromised under any threat. Else we are not very different from them.

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New York Times should make its Times Reader free as well

The New York Times will stop charging from September 19 for online content covered under its TimesSelect program. Until this move TimesSelect content on the newspaper’s online site, including some opinion columns, was charged for separately.

The move by The New York Times reflects how newspapers are trying to come to terms with the online world, and the implicit demand from users that information should be free.

There are reports that The Wall Street Journal, a subscription-only financial news site may slowly move to offering more if not all content free, after it is acquired by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp.

In the circumstances, newspapers will have to rely more on online advertising for online revenues, while charging only for the print editions. As more readers move online, the revenue mix is getting skewed in the direction of advertising revenue, and away from subscriptions.

The TimesSelect was introduced two years ago by the newspaper in a bid to make some money from readers on select content. But this hybrid model, which combined subscription revenue with advertising revenue online, did not really pay off.

The newspaper made about US$10 million in revenue annually from TimesSelect, but it lost out on a number of readers, including those coming through search engines, who were not willing to pay for the content, but would have been an attractive target for advertisers.

The New York Times also introduced almost a year ago the Times Reader, an offline reader for the online newspaper. Readers can download content into the reader, and then read it offline in an easily navigated and flexible format. The New York Times was offering TimesSelect free with the Times Reader.

With TimesSelect now free, subscribers of the reader may not renew their monthly subscription of $14.95. The Times Reader proposition was not very compelling when the New York Times started charging for it, and is now less so. The Times Reader provides an interesting reading experience, but to many it hardly justifies paying $14.95 per month for it.

The newspaper is better off making the Times Reader also free, making up for lost subscriptions with advertising. The Times Reader would then be a strategic tool in the New York Times’ contest for eyeballs and advertising revenue.

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Minister, leave the kids alone !

The decision by the government in the state of Karnataka in India to ban mobile phones, for school kids under 16, is quite thoughtless. As Bangalore, the capital city of Karnataka and a technology hub, gets increasingly unsafe, as traffic gets unpredictable, and traffic jams are frequent, it is both reassuring and necessary for kids to be able to communicate with their parents.

A parent I know in Bangalore was quite distressed that in future she would not be able to communicate with her kid while in school. She told me she has found a work-around. "If they will not let my kid buy a phone, then maybe I will take an additional connection in my name, and give it to the kid," she said.

If the government is concerned about mobile phone users disturbing the class, and quite rightly so, this is a matter for the discipline committees in each school to handle. Blanket bans don't help, and only reflect the schools' inability to handle discipline.

Getting kids to reduce their use of mobile phones to only emergency calls, to avoid the suspected harmful effects of mobile phones, would be a matter to be handled jointly by parents, teachers, and kids.

We are seeing a similar dispute over the use of mobile phones in schools in New York, according to a report in the New York Times

The people of Bangalore would at this point be better served if the police enforce existing rules such as banning drivers from using mobile phones.

The government should also consider clamping down on pedestrians who negotiate the roads while distractedly talking into their mobile phones. The need to be "connected" seems to be so strong among people in Bangalore, that often folks plug on their headsets and start talking just as they are leaving home. Often car drivers honk at jay walking pedestrian, but the pedestrian cannot hear over the mobile conversation, or is too engrossed in the conversation.