Vance Ertel v rummy
<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">legit original vs bannon bs crypto</font></div><div><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="line-height: 19.2px;"><span times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" text-align="text-align" justify="justify">Louis Clark, Government Accountability <b>Project,</b></span></span></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="line-height: 19.2px;">est 1977</span></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="line-height: 19.2px;"><span style="text-align: justify;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_Accountability_Project">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_Accountability_Project</a></font></span></span></p><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><a href="https://shadowproof.com/2012/11/12/dismissal-of-whistleblowers-lawsuit-against-rumsfeld-grants-us-officials-greater-immunity-for-torture/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://shadowproof.com/2012/11/12/dismissal-of-whistleblowers-lawsuit-against-rumsfeld-grants-us-officials-greater-immunity-for-torture/</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">federal court dismissed a lawsuit last week against former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. The suit, brought by Donald Vance, a US Navy veteran and former defense contractor, and Nathan Ertel, also a former defense contractor, alleged he was responsible for</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> torture they had experienced in an American-run prison in Iraq for nearly one hundred days. The dismissal effectively makes it even more impossible for US citizens to sue high-ranking officials, who are responsible for their torture.</span></font></div><p style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Briefly, the </span><a href="http://dissenter.shadowproof.wpengine.com/2011/08/06/navy-veteran-suing-rumsfeld-for-torture-discusses-becoming-an-fbi-informant-video/" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">back story</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> is as follows:</span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> In October 2005, Vance, who had been working for Shield Group Security in Iraq since 2004, <a href="http://dissenter.shadowproof.wpengine.com/2011/08/08/rumsfeld-loses-attempt-to-have-torture-suit-against-him-dismissed/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">informed the FBI division</a> in Chicago that US military personnel were involved in illegal weapons trading</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> This activity involved his employer, Shield Group Security, which was selling stashes of weapons to Iraqi officials. Some of the officials had ties to violent militias. Vance also reported contractors for Shield Group Security were providing liquor to US soldiers in exchange for ammunition and weapons repairs.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">After Vance went to the FBI division in Chicago, he was asked to be an informant and return to Iraq. He learned his cover was blown a few months later. He informed the US Embassy in Baghdad he felt threatened. He was told US Special Forces were coming to rescue Ertel and him.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The two contractors had their laptop computers, cell phones and cameras seized by US forces. They discussed sharing information related to Shield Group Security and then they were “sent to a trailer to sleep.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">They were woken up, arrested, handcuffed, blindfolded and then driven to Camp Prosperity</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. There they were held in solitary confinement for two days. <b>They then were transported to Camp Cropper, a prison that Rumsfeld had been working to “Gitmo-tize.</b>” At Camp Cropper, they were subjected to “enhanced interrogation techniques”—torture—like food manipulation and walling. They were not allowed to contact their families.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On November 7, the United States Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals decided to dismiss the case. <b>Chief Justice Frank H. Easterbrook, appointed by President Ronald Reagan,</b> concluded in <a href="http://www.ca7.uscourts.gov/tmp/N512GGQ5.pdf" style="box-sizing: border-box; background: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">the opinion</a>:</font></p><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; letter-spacing: 1px; line-height: 25px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">…What plaintiffs want is an award of damages premised on a view that the military command structure should be different—that, for example, the Secretary of Defense must do more (or do something different) to control misconduct by interrogators and other personnel on the scene in foreign nations.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> They want a judicial order that would make the Secretary of Defense care less about the Secretary’s view of the best military policy, and more about the Secretary’s regard for his own finances.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> Plaintiffs believe that giving the Secretary of Defense a financial stake in the conduct of interrogators would lead the Secretary to hold the <b>rights of detainees in higher regard—which surely is true, but that change would come at an uncertain cost in national security</b>…</span></font></p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Easterbrook placed concern over what it would mean for national security if high-ranking US officials like Rumsfeld were liable for detainee torture or abuse. He proceeded to suggest that holding Rumsfeld responsible could create a precedent where judges would “make mistakes.” Lacking “vital knowledge,” they might reject facts, the law or award “excessive damages on justified claims or create supervisory liability when they shouldn’t.” Humans are fallible and “judges lack information that executive officials possess.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The argument shows deference to those with great power in the Executive Branch.</b> It also appears to have led to a decision that grants greater immunity to high-ranking officials than prior to the decision.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The <a href="http://www.ca7.uscourts.gov/tmp/N512GGQ5.pdf" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">dissenting opinion</a> from Judge Ann Claire Williams, appointed by President Bill Clinton, is remarkable for what it argues. Williams makes it clear that “torture is a crime under international and US law.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">” Laws in the US are supposed to provide “civil remedies for victims of torture by government officials of other nations” (for example, the Torture Victim Protection Act). But, under the majority’s decision, “US courts are closed to US citizens who are victims of torture by US military personnel.” This is a an error as Congress had no intention to deny US civilians a right “expressly extended to the rest of the world.”</span><span id="more-117548" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Williams added:</font></p><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; letter-spacing: 1px; line-height: 25px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">…A victim of torture by the Syrian military, for example, can sue in a U.S. court, but a U.S. citizen tortured by the U.S. military cannot. That conclusion should be deeply troubling, to put it mildly. We should not attribute that improbable view to Congress without a far more compelling basis than the majority offers…</font></p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The dissenting judge further stated, “Supposed another country has enacted its own law identical to the US Torture Victim Protection Act. Under the majority’s reasoning, there are no “adequate and available remedies in the place” where the conduct occurred (a US military base). If Mr. Rumsfeld could be found visiting a country with its own TVPA (so he oculd be served with process), plaintiffs Bance and Ertel could sue him in that country under its TVPA because US law would provide no remedy.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The court decision heavily relied upon interpretation of two cases, <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Chappell v. Wallace </em>(1983) and <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">United States v. Stanley </em>(1987), cases where the decision suggested the Supreme Court never created a “non-statutory right of action for damages against military personnel.” In doing so, it put more emphasis on these cases and apparently overlooked <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Mitchell v. Forsyth</em>, a case that decided whether cabinet officers should be immune from suits from individuals.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">According to Williams, the Court held in <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Mitchell </em>that Attorney General John Mitchell was not entitled to absolute immunity for ordering “unconstitutional surveillance of the plaintiff” even though he “acted for reasons of national security.”</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> The Court actually found the “national security context” favored allowing the case to proceed.</span></font></p><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; letter-spacing: 1px; line-height: 25px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">…Because national security tasks are carried out in secret, “it is far more likely that actual abuses will go uncovered than that fancied abuses will give rise to unfounded and burdensome litigation,” id. at 522, and the “danger that high federal officials will disregard constitutional rights in their zeal to protect the national security is sufficiently real to counsel against affording such officials an absolute immunity”…</font></p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Court in the <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Mitchell </em>case favored qualified immunity, not absolute immunity, because it would “strike the correct balance between deterring clear violations of constitutional rights and <b>giving government officials room for discretionary judgment and reasonable mistakes.”</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The federal court’s decision refused to use the word torture when describing what Vance and Ertel suffered. Though she concurred with the majority’s opinion on immunity, Judge Diane Pamela Wood did not go for the court’s sanitizing of what happened to Vance and Ertel. She wrote in her opinion:</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">…Plaintiffs Donald Vance and Nathan Ertel assert that representatives of the U.S. government (who happened to be members of the Armed Forces) subjected them to a variety of measures that easily qualify as “torture,” whether under the definitions found in the Army Field Manual, international law,or legislation such as the Torture Victim Protection Act…This shameful fact should not be minimized by using euphemisms such as the term “harsh interrogation techniques.”…</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Finally, Williams, in her opinion, revealed key details on how the government had been preventing Vance and Ertel from having essential information necessary to press their case against Rumsfeld:</font></p><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; letter-spacing: 1px; line-height: 25px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">…After years of delay, the government finally complied with the district court’s order to identify the individuals who slammed plaintiffs into walls, deprived them of sleep, food, water, and adequate clothing, and who subjected them to extreme cold, though after plaintiffs have been seeking the needed information in the district court for nearly six years, the government still has not provided sufficient information to serve any of those individuals with process…</font></p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The “stone-walling” prevented individuals from being named or an order “personally signed by Mr. Rumsfeld that these two plaintiffs…be treated as they allege they were treated” from ever surfacing.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In conclusion, it seems this case is another case to add to the many cases in recent years that have been dismissed or decided in ways that make it <a href="http://dissenter.shadowproof.wpengine.com/2012/04/18/supreme-court-makes-it-even-more-impossible-for-torture-victims-to-wi-suits/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">more impossible for torture victims</a> to bring cases and prevail. And, this case is particularly stunning because these were military contractors working in cooperation with a supposed FBI investigation. They were placed in detention and tortured when their cover was blown and, in the aftermath, have been denied key information on how they ended up becoming torture victims. If there is no recourse for them, what recourse is there for any US citizen abused by their government?</font></p><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">rivkin718</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">hard to unpacjk the Yugoslav matter, but apparently he filed papers but justice minister actually argued; ended in a draw? Could not prove INTENT of genocide? Serbia turned over war criminals as a precondtion to getting into the EU (Croatia also under pressure from US via IMF and _?). This seems at odds with US not being subject to international law and GITMO case?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Argument Recap in Lebron v. Rumsfeld (Padilla's Bivens Suit)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">By Alan Z. Rozenshtein Monday, October 31, 2011</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2012/11/new_ruling_donald_rumsfeld_can_t_be_sued_for_torture.html</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Why Donald Rumsfeld Can’t Be Sued for Torture</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">His latest and biggest court victory.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld may not be sued by two U.S. citizens who were tortured by members of the military. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit, which issued the decision, is the third appeals court to let Rumsfeld off the hook legally. But the 7th Circuit decision goes further than the others. By a vote of 7-4, its judges said that no member of our military—presumably even one who personally inflicts torture—can be sued for his related conduct in office.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The facts are a case study in system failure. Donald Vance and Nathan Ertel were Americans working for a private security firm in Iraq. When Vance became suspicious that his employer was selling weapons to groups hostile to the United States, he went to the FBI. Vance and Ertel were then fingered as arms dealers. Military personnel arrested them in 2006 and held them for several weeks.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">According to the complaint, Vance and Ertel were held in solitary confinement and subjected to violence, sleep deprivation, extremes of temperature and sound, denial of food, water, and medical care, and other abuses. Though the Army Field Manual (and four judges) calls this torture, the majority opinion prefers the euphemism “harsh interrogation techniques.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The majority and the dissents clashed over military accountability and the role of the judiciary. The starting point for both sides is Bivens, a 1971 Supreme Court case that allows a victim of a constitutional violation to sue a responsible federal officer for damages when no other law or court ruling gives them an entry into court. The majority argued that the Supreme Court has spent the last three decades reining in Bivens, and it thus cannot sanction Vance and Ertel’s “novel damages remedy” against military personnel. The dissenters attacked this entire mode of analysis: It is incorrect to say that Vance and Ertel are asking the court to create a right to seek damages, they argued, because Bivens already provides it.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The majority also read Supreme Court precedent to say that civilian courts should not “interfere with the military chain of command” without guidance from Congress. And here, Congress has addressed the rights of detainees in laws such as the Torture Victim Protection Act and has chosen not to provide for damages against military personnel. End of story. The dissenters respond by accusing the majority of converting a narrow rule—one that prevents military personnel from suing for injuries related to their service—into a sweeping rule that shields the military entirely from lawsuits by civilians. One telling and troubling point they make: In the 7th Circuit now (Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin), a victim of torture by a foreign military who finds his torturer in the United States has a remedy, but a U.S. citizen who is tortured by his own military does not. </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Katie Mesner-Hage is a recent graduate of Yale Law School.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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