Live data from Hacker News

An American Black Site

typeinvestigations.org

51–60 of 75 posts

Re: An American Black Site

#51
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, what's your alternative? The death penalty? Release them?

Make your prisons humane, don’t force-feed anyone, and accept the condemnation that occurs when one of your prisoners decides to starve himself to death anyway.

That's fair. But you aren't the one I was asking. I get the impression that that wasn't danharaj's alternative.

Re: An American Black Site

#52
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I imagine that it isn't actually prior restraint in the classic sense, but instead in the form of an agreement that the lawyers and family members have to sign before talking to the prisoners in question.

Yes, I suspect that they're non-disclosure agreements. So violating them puts one in contempt of court. And punishments for contempt are whatever judges say they are.

See, that would make a least some sense. But apparently "The U.S. Attorney General has sole discretion to impose SAMs". With court imposed gag orders there's a court order from a judge. These things seem to be administrative decisions about detention conditions (the same way prisons can regulate the books prisoners can have, etc). But if so, they wouldn't ordinarily regulate the speech of people not actually in jail. I think the worst they'd be able to do is ban that person from visiting again, not actually prosecute them. How can you be in contempt of court if SAMs are at the sole discretion of the AG?

Re: An American Black Site

#53
post #39

Setting aside this specific situation. Let's say you run a prison, and an inmate goes on a "hunger strike" for a reason that's important to them. What should the prison operators do? Force feed the inmate, negotiate, give into their demands, or let them die? Let's say you try to negotiate, but the inmate is making unreasonable demands or you are not willing to meet their demands, then what?

To everyone saying to let them die, then where is the punishment? Most terrorists would rather and, in fact, intend to die during their attacks. If you let them die, not only are you giving them what they want, but then there is no deterrent to carrying out suicide missions.

I don't see any reason to believe that the fear of prison should they fail to die has ever, or will ever, deter even a single person from carrying out a suicide mission.

Re: An American Black Site

#54
post #18

Why isn't there more of a highlight on Salameh's actual charges. This is grossly glossed over especially when understanding what you have to do to land oneself in a blacksite to begin with.

yeah, tell that to the black teenagers dragged to Homan Square in Chicago

which would be exactly why I would want to know the charge's

Re: An American Black Site

#55
post #9

Why are western nations retreating from any semblance of the moral high ground?

It's our moral high ground that stops us from killing the terrorist or letting him starve himself to death.

Force-feeding hunger strikers is the opposite of "moral high ground." If you're a jailer, and a prisoner dies in your care, then there may be questions asked, there may be accountability. You don't want that. As long as you can keep them more or less alive, it's a lot easier to piously claim the moral high ground while doing basically whatever you want to them.

It's propaganda. It's not done because we value their lives, but specifically because we don't.

Re: An American Black Site

#56
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I suspect that they're non-disclosure agreements. So violating them puts one in contempt of court. And punishments for contempt are whatever judges say they are.

See, that would make a least some sense. But apparently "The U.S. Attorney General has sole discretion to impose SAMs". With court imposed gag orders there's a court order from a judge. These things seem to be administrative decisions about detention conditions (the same way prisons can regulate the books prisoners can have, etc). But if so, they wouldn't ordinarily regulate the speech of people not actually in jail.…

I guess that the US AG has that power. Or maybe some tame judges. I suppose that it could go to the Supreme Court.

However, many cases have been quashed, based on national security grounds. For criminal cases, charges against suspects have been dropped. But about SAMs, that would likely leave the status unchanged. IANAL, though.

Re: An American Black Site

#57
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yeah, tell that to the black teenagers dragged to Homan Square in Chicago

which would be exactly why I would want to know the charge's

The charges ARE in the article, AND the author specifically mentioned why she wasn't re-hashing them more than she did. Most of those black teens at Homan Square didn't get an article at all.

Re: An American Black Site

#58
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People should be able to control their bodies. If you don't want to eat. Nobody should force feed you.

I'm not trying to muddy the waters on this issue or take a consequentialist perspective, but how is this materially different from someone rejecting oxygen? The moral response seems to be to intervene rather than let someone commit suicide, regardless of how long it takes.

Refusing food is less violent. Just like people have the right to refuse refuse to take medicine, refuse medical treatments etc, they should be able to refuse food.

Re: An American Black Site

#59
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Make your prisons humane, don’t force-feed anyone, and accept the condemnation that occurs when one of your prisoners decides to starve himself to death anyway.

That's fair. But you aren't the one I was asking. I get the impression that that wasn't danharaj's alternative.

I don’t see how “Makes you think, doesn't it?” would imply anything more than the comment it was in response to.

Re: An American Black Site

#60
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's fair. But you aren't the one I was asking. I get the impression that that wasn't danharaj's alternative.

I don’t see how “Makes you think, doesn't it?” would imply anything more than the comment it was in response to.

I read it as implying that all prisons are inherently inhumane, and therefore that nobody should be in them. But that's one of the problem with drive-by questions like that - you can't tell for sure what their actual point is.
Post reply on HN