WTF ????

In Voiding Suit, Appellate Court Says Torture Is To Be Expected
By Greg Gordon
McClatchy Newspapers

Friday 11 January 2008

Washington - A federal appeals court Friday threw out a suit by four British Muslims who allege that they were tortured and subjected to religious abuse in the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, a ruling that exonerated 11 present and former senior Pentagon officials.

It appeared to be the first time that a federal appellate court has ruled on the legality of the harsh interrogation tactics that U.S. intelligence officers and military personnel have used on suspected terrorists held outside the United States since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

The detainees allege that they were held in stress positions, interrogated for sessions lasting 24 hours, intimidated with dogs and isolated in darkness and that their beards were shaved.

The three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that the detainees captured in Afghanistan aren't recognized as "persons" under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act because they were aliens held outside the United States. The Religious Freedom Act prohibits the government from "substantially burdening a person's religion."

The court rejected other claims on the grounds that then-Attorney General John Ashcroft had certified that the military officials were acting within the scope of their jobs when they authorized the tactics, and that such tactics were "foreseeable."
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WTF???? Are these judges just nuts? Is this really what our nation stands for...oh, well, fuck the constitution and we can decide who are people and who are not? Didn't we decide the who are people thing with the emancipation proclamation, among other things?

Are we a nation of laws or of men? Obviously a nation of fascistic men. One more rung on the ladder to a fascist state has been climbed.