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    • Chris Hedges: Someone You Love: Coming to a Gulag Near You - Chris Hedges' Columns - Truthdig
      “You are unable to say that [such a book] consisting of political speech could not be captured under [NDAA section] 1021?” the judge asked. “We can’t say that,” Torrance answered. “Are you telling me that no U.S. citizen can be detained under 1021?” Forest asked. “That’s not a reasonable fear,” the government lawyer said. Advertisement “Say it’s reasonable to fear you will be unlucky [and face] detention, trial. What does ‘directly supported’ mean?” she asked. “We have not said anything about that …” Torrance answered. “What do you think it means?” the judge asked. “Give me an example that distinguishes between direct and indirect support. Give me a single example.” “We have not come to a position on that,” he said. “So assume you are a U.S. citizen trying not to run afoul of this law. What does it [the phrase] mean to you?” the judge said. “I couldn’t offer any specific language,” Torrance answered. “I don’t have a specific example.”
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      "When the long history of political infiltration is reviewed, the Occupy Movement should be surprised if it is not infiltrated. Almost every movement in modern history has been infiltrated by police and others using many of the same tactics we are now seeing in Occupy. "
    • Critiques Of Libertarianism: A Non-Libertarian FAQ (Huben)
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    • UPDATED: Limbaugh's Misogynistic Attack On Georgetown Law Student Continues With Increased Vitriol (Media Matters for America)
      Always good to have a reference, this is it. "Rush Limbaugh is not backing down after widespread condemnation over his misogynistic attack on Sandra Fluke, a Georgetown University Law School student who testified before Congress recently about the problems caused when women lack access to contraception. " Multiple clips for future show and tells.
    • America's Death Squads (Davies, PDA Community/ZCommunications)
      "Barack Obama has halted the macabre parade of hooded, shackled suspects in orange jumpsuits stumbling off American planes into the tropical sunshine at Guantanamo, but he has not done so by restoring the rule of law. Instead, to a great extent, he has replaced Bush’s policy with a global campaign to simply kill a wide range of people in cold blood: terrorism suspects, resistance fighters, and anyone else added to secret lists for secret reasons. From a uniquely American “exceptionalist” point of view, killing suspects instead of capturing them is a convenient way to avoid the embarrassment of sweeping up hundreds of mostly innocent people in an indiscriminate global dragnet and then not knowing what to do with them. The dead tell no tales. Public outrage is contained within the faraway countries where the killings take place and does not cause domestic political problems."
    • Corruption in Iraq: 'Your son is being tortured. He will die if you don't pay' (Abdul-Ahad, Guardian)
      Iraq ten years after: instead of one Saddam, many little ones. "Yassir was detained in 2007. For three years she heard nothing of him and assumed he was dead like his brothers. Then one day she took a phone call from an officer who said she could go to visit him if she paid a bribe. She borrowed the money from her neighbour and set off for the prison. "We waited until they brought him," she said. "His hands and legs were tied in metal chains like a criminal. I didn't know him from the torture. He wasn't my son, he was someone else.""

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Mzoudi witness Zakeri might not testify

Posted by Thomas Nephew on January 25th, 2004

More Mzoudi trial* developments: German newspaper “Die Tageszeitung” reports that the Iranian goes by the alias “Zakeri,” and refers to an “Insight on the News” article in June, in which a U.S. official, responding to Zakeri’s 9/11 claims, called the Iranian “a fabricator of monumental proportion.”

Die Welt reports that the court apparently wants to proceed with hearing “Zakeri” himself next Thursday (1/29), but may not get the opportunity:

German federal prosecutor Walter Hemberger explained that because of promised confidentiality, this could only be handled “as a wish.”

Hamburg interior minister vows Mzoudi deportation

In a comment below, Scott Hanson points out this Spiegel article, “Into the clutches of the CIA by a devious route,”** detailing why Mzoudi is pressing for asylum:

…Hamburg interior minister Nockemann told SPIEGEL that he wanted to deport the suspect following the expected not guilty verdict as quickly as possible. Even if [Mzoudi], the friend of the terror pilot Atta were to leave the courtroom as an innocent man, there was “no room in Germany” for him, the senator of the Partei Rechtsstaatliche Offensive said. This attitude was shared inside the German government as well. Officials have already prepared all the formalities for a quick deportation.

Nockemann is the new leader of the Partei Rechtsstaatliche Offensive, a new party that scored some surprising gains in Hamburg a few years back. Last year its controversial leader and founder, Ronald Schill, was dismissed as Hamburg’s interior minister after attempting to blackmail the mayor with homophobic allegations against an ally. While Nockemann may be in a position to urge Mzoudi’s deportation, I’m not sure whether he can bring it off on his own. He may just be trying to be like Schill to a base that reportedly still hankers after their lost leader.

=====

* Scroll down for prior posts about this trial, or click these: 1, 2.

** TRANSLATION NOTES: by a devious route: ‘auf Umwegen’, which can also just mean ‘the long way around’. ‘Partei Rechtstaatliche Offensive’ is a conservative party; the name is hard to translate, but amounts to something like ‘Party for a Law and Order Offensive.’ Interior minister: Innensenator.

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