Thank God for the ACLU. I know some will disagree because the ACLU takes unpopular stands sometimes in its zealous defense of our liberties. But With government agencies and some corporations routinely breaking the law, it seems it is up to organizations such as the ACLU to protect us from those abuses, instead of the government agencies that were set up to do so, but aren't, or in some cases, like the FAA as noted on this site, are doing the opposite of their manadated duties to protect us.

A quote from a 5/31/07 Chicago Sun-Times story ( http://www.suntimes.com/business/408190 ... 31.article ) on the Boeing Torture Flight Allegations (with my comments on the story in parenthesis):

"ACLU attorney Ben Wizner said Jeppesen (Boeing subsidary) could not have been ignorant of the purpose of CIA flights. (Seems like a big "Duh" to me).

''Either they knew or reasonably should have known that they were facilitating a torture program,'' he said. (Ditto. The Boeing manager in the Board meeting as noted in the New Yorker article certainly seems to have made the connection. Funny (or not so funny) thought. Boeing used to have a startup called "Connexion by Boeing" that has shut down or is in the process of doing so. It's purpose was to provide broadband services to airline passengers. However, since it is/has been shutting down, the name is freed up for other use. Wouldn't it be a good name for the "torture flights" for the government by Boeing subsidary Jeppeson? Instead of the (rightly) ominous sounding "torture flights" default name, as they apparently have not named this service as they didn't expect it to go public, they could just re-use the Connexions by Boeing moniker for them. Then they could make up nice glossy brochures with the branding for their customers for this service with hooded and shackled suspected terrorists boarding and deplaning aircraft, on their way to being tortured until they admit they are terrorists (of course, that part is the customer's business, I guess it wouldn't be mentioned in the brochures. Maybe "Torture Connexion by Boeing" wouldn't be kosher from a P.R. or liability standpoint should the public get hold of one of these hypothetical brochures. Anyway, this situation deosn't lend itself to comedy, as I've just proven.)

Companies ''are not allowed to have their head in the sand and take money from the CIA to fly people, hooded and shackled, to foreign countries to be tortured,'' Wizner said.

The lawsuit charges that Jeppesen knowingly provided direct flight services to the CIA that enabled the clandestine transportation of the men to secret overseas locations. The ACLU claims the men were tortured there and subjected to other ''forms of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment'' (Hey, I know intimately that kind of treatment from my years at Boeing where I was harassed and retaliated against for doing my job, albeit mostly not in a physical way as perhaps these men were) under the agency's ''extraordinary rendition'' program.

The CIA will not be named in the lawsuit; Wizner said the executive branch has evoked a state secrets defense in similar lawsuits. The Bush administration has insisted it receives guarantees from countries receiving terror suspects that prisoners will not be tortured. (Can you believe that last part?--Me neither. If the government promised they wouldn't torture them, then why the hell were they flown over there at all on private jets? Seems like a waste of tax dollars to me. We could have interrogated them here if, as the Bush Administration says, they weren't treated more harshly over there. If that's true, maybe they weren't "torture flights" at all, but were just little vacations from their harsh interrogations here because we felt for them and wanted to give them middle eastern all expenses paid vacations to refresh them for further interrogations. I guess that's one thing you can infer if you believe what the administration said.)

End of article quote


I guess that's enough terror news for today.