First page I loaded said this:

2015-02-20 02:27:19 -0800 - *E_WARNING* Division by zero /www/videosift.com/varo/core/core.video.inc (Line 4203)

You see no difference between the federal and state (or county level) just the same as some cops don't see the difference between strong-arm robbers who try to take weapons and cigarette sellers who give up and are still fucked up...welcome to the world of stereotypes...

Think on this. CIA blatantly torture without rebuke, yet regular cops rarely (Although some do but many are prosecuted). Massive difference if you look.

"That depends on who you ask...witnesses..." Really... Yeah, the same shit is argued by "witnesses" for the CIA that argue the CIA does not "torture" people. THAT ARGUMENT in general is utterly asinine. A group of people, many who contradicted each other in the heat of the moment want to portray the outsider as a bad guy...it doesn't help that most of them are low intelligence. Imagine if it had all been white police officers who were the "witnesses", you sure as hell would not side with them. You would say they lie, or defend one another...

Additionally, even if not intentionally, I know that mistaken identity has screwed so many innocent people because in a crisis situation your cognitive functions all but lie to you. You just don't remember things very clearly--even if you are unbiased.

So what do you do? Fault imperfect humans in an imperfect situation? No, you look at the physical evidence. Did the bullet enter the top of his head? Well then he was under the officer and people underneath someone usually try to take someone to the ground, etc. The DA threw the cases away...um, no...the Grand Jury did...the DA has considerable sway there, yes, but then so does public perception...

As a sidebar I should add that in proper uses of force, not Garner's particular situation at all, the more officers on a subject the better. This prevents injury by immobilizing someone. The more someone moves the more force that eventually has to be used. That is the principle behind the tazer. Yeah, I could rip you off the car door you grab on to resist arrest, or I could taze you. Potentially rip your arm out of its socket, or shock you for five seconds...same with three or four people grabbing you to gain compliance. Same reason handcuffs are applied.

The United States of America is a constitution-based federal republic with a strong democratic tradition.

Source:
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/us.html
(under the "government" heading)

(in previous years that line read "democratic tendencies")

Thanks for the book review.

At least Obama put a stop to it. Except for the CIA facility at Mogadishu's airport where they held people in an underground dungeon and comforted them with some electric current through the genitals. Yeah, except for that.

Also, let's not talk about the torture camps run by the military, by contractors or by the Iraqi forces trained and instructed by folks like Colonels James Steele, who had already run Salvadoran death squads. And while we're at it, let's not talk about the outsourcing of torture to the goons of Gaddafi, Assad and Mubarak.

By the way, Brazil just published documents about 20 years of torture. Who trained the torturers? The usual suspects...

He doesn't seem crazy, he seems angry, possibly on the verge of a panic attack that he's trying to prevent by yelling. It would be annoying but not at all frightening.

If, however, he believed that lift had been stopped so that the CIA hit squad had time to get into position - that would be a scary place to be for an hour.

it's not illegal, we got legal advice that told us it wasn't, so there!
Just because it was directly against multiple conventions AND United States law means nothing, Bush lawyers said it's OK, the rest of the world just doesn't understand because they're all too stupid.
Wait, aren't these the people who have been telling us that the government is taking over, doing illegal, immoral things and over reaching beyond the law? Now they don't need to know what the CIA does in our name because...Gruber and Benghazi!?! Now they say we need less 'conversation' about what WE do, and more about what other countries are doing.
I just lost about 17 IQ points watching this.

From Spencer Ackerman's article on the torture report:

The committee found at least five cases of “rectal rehydration”

I'm fairly conflicted.

The issue with having an assassination program with virtually no oversight, run by a government whose people are all too willing to ignore the collateral damage it brings to foreigners is pretty obvious. You could argue that terrorists target the US because of genuine grievances (past blowback particularly from intervention during the Cold War motivated largely by opposing a communist threat over any moral considerations). From there you could argue that if only the US avoided foreign intervention, in time it would no longer be a terrorist target and have no need for such morally questionable action as using drones with significant civilian casualty risk.

I'm sceptical of this argument. For one I think the espoused goals of many terrorist organisations are often a sham. They may start as violent reactionaries to some genuinely held grievance. But mature organisations initiate a conflict with the US because notoriety brings financial support and more fighters which in turn improves their ability to project power, which is their ultimate goal. So I don't see US disengagement as a solution because terrorist attacks and beheadings of its nationals will continue to politically galvanise the US into action. At that point having being disengaged beforehand (lacking intel, ability to target leadership with drones) is just a disadvantage.

I also don't see a government other than the US capable and willing to rally a group of nations and take a leading role against a group like ISIS. It's fair to say that the US invasion of Iraq was largely responsible for destabilising an authoritarian government under Saddam that would have prevented the emergence of a Sunni group like this. But then, imagine if Saddam was still in power in reaction to the Arab Spring and the result was a situation like Syria today. It is all too possible that a similar group would have emerged in a power vacuum not caused by US intervention.

My point is, I agree it is horrible to see civilians being killed by drones and having to live under the constant terror of attack but I don't see a better solution. In fact it seems that drones are probably the solution with the least risk of civilian casualty. There is a reason why the Yemeni/Pakistani government tacitly support them even while publicly disavowing them.

Of course I would like to see them used more judiciously but I am sceptical that this is feasibly possible. I do not doubt that the CIA/Pentagon who run the program are familiar with blowback and the risks of inciting attacks on the US through the killing of innocents in these strikes. It is possible incentives for 'results' may lead to their overuse at the expense of civilian lives and the long term cost. Maybe more openness would be best. Then again more openness would serve as a rallying cry for existing terrorist organisations.

Right wingers have been warning about this for years. You just didn't notice because they've also been warning about a president from Kenya, 9/11 being a CIA operation with holographic planes, government controlled snow storms, Boston bombing being an FBI operation, etc, etc, etc.

CIA Chief of Station in Berlin has just been expelled from the country. Pointless symbolism, but I'll take it.

Well, there are reports of a second case of espionage, this time in our department of defense, and again linked to the NSA/CIA...

Here's the cherry on top: a 31 year old member of our foreign intelligence service was arrested on charges of espionage two days ago. Supposedly, he supplied reports about the parliamentary investigative committee to an unnamed US intelligence agency...

Just one though, not the entire service. Who is going to believe that it's just one guy who hands information over to a US intelligence agency? They work so closely hand in hand that I'd be surprised if the CIA didn't get a proper recording of every meeting on the same day. courtesy of our own intelligence service, free of charge.

Maybe not free of charge. They probably use it as currency to buy something else from your intelligence agencies...

Edit: As if that wasn't rediculous enough, check out this tweet by Jess Radack: https://twitter.com/JesselynRadack/status/485009501796696064

Thugs on the loose again...