Digby

It's Just Like "Hell Week"

... or maybe they just wanted to blow off some steam. And anyway, "bad guys always lie" so you have to torture them.

FOREMAN: On Friday, Michael Mukasey became attorney general of the United States despite his refusal to define an interrogation practice known as waterboarding, essentially convincing a person that he is drowning as torture. In a world where terrorists really are out there trying to kill us, where is the bright line between what must be done and what should be done? Retired Navy Lieutenant Commander Charlie Swift teaches, now teaches at Emery Law School in Atlanta and still represents one of the Guantanamo detainees. And with me in Washington, David Rivkin, an official at the Justice Department in the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administration. Professor, let me start with you. Where do we stand in this debate now. It seems now that we've gone through months of trying to decide what we think torture and what is not.

Media Solidarity

Atrios and Matt Stoller make a good point about how the press is covering the WGA strike. And it just proves how corporate values rule the media. After all, the strikers in this case are fellow members of the media themselves, and yet they're getting hostile coverage. And likewise, many of the news people who are covering them are in unions too. There can be no reasons other than corporate pressure to explain the hostility or the fact the strike is being virtually blacked out in the local press despite stars and political activists showing up to picket along with ordinary Americans.


Telling It Straight

Intel Official: Say Goodbye to Privacy

A top intelligence official says it is time people in the United States changed their definition of privacy.

Privacy no longer can mean anonymity, says Donald Kerr, the principal deputy director of national intelligence. Instead, it should mean that government and businesses properly safeguards people's private communications and financial information.

Trust 'em?