Obama '08?

I believe in people Diest - you only believe in people just like you- that's the difference between me and you.

Your implication that a private porch is a license to do anything the owner wants is ridiculous on its face, but you wanted to pursue that line of thinking - all based on your imagination.

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I believe in people Diest - you only believe in people just like you- that's the difference between me and you.

I meant to say I believe in people-you only believe in people who THINK or SEE THINGS just like you.

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I believe in people Diest - you only believe in people just like you- that's the difference between me and you.

I meant to say I believe in people-you only believe in people who THINK or SEE THINGS just like you.

"There is a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately."

That was how US President Barack Obama put the arrest of the black Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr into context.

His comments - in particular his description of the arresting officer's actions as "stupid" - have attracted criticism in conservative circles, forcing him to make a surprise appearance at the daily White House press briefing in an attempt to calm the situation.

But for many in America, Mr Obama's evocation of the country's history of racial oppression will have great resonance.

Traffic stops

Professor Gates was arrested outside his own home. A passer-by had called the police after seeing him apparently attempting to force his way in through a damaged front door.

When Sgt James Crowley arrived, Professor Gates indicated that he was the owner of the property and reportedly began accusing Sgt Crowley of racism.

Sgt Crowley then arrested him for disorderly conduct, prompting Professor Gates, director of Harvard's W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research, to allegedly start shouting: "This is what happens to black men in America."

Statistics suggest that he may have a point.

Racial profiling is defined by the UN as "the practice of police and other law enforcement officers relying, to any degree, on race, colour, descent or national or ethnic origin as the basis for subjecting persons to investigatory activities or for determining whether an individual is engaged in criminal activity".

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has put together a dossier looking at incidences of racial profiling throughout the US.

In Los Angeles - where memories of the police beating of an African-American man, Rodney King are still fresh - the ACLU cites a recent study by Professor Ian Ayres of Yale University which found that African-Americans are nearly three times as likely to be stopped by the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) as whites.

"These disparities are not justified by crime rates in different neighborhoods where people of color live," Professor Ayres writes. "Nor do the disparities arise because more police are assigned to black or Latino neighborhoods."

In Illinois, a state-sponsored study revealed that black and Hispanic motorists were more than twice as likely as white motorists to be subjected to "consent searches" by the police, yet white motorists were twice as likely to be found with contraband as a result of the searches.

Anger

President Obama has a personal connection to the Illinois statistics.

He sponsored the legislation (the Illinois Traffic Stops Statistics Act) that empowered the state authorities to collect the data on traffic stops.

It is clearly an issue that Mr Obama feels strongly about. During his presidential campaign, he pledged to "ban racial profiling", and his Attorney General, Eric Holder, has indicated that ending the practice is a "priority" for the administration.

Ta-Nehisi Coates, an African-American blogger for the Atlantic Monthly magazine, who writes regularly about the issue of race in America, thinks that Mr Obama's personal experiences may have informed his opposition to racial profiling, and his reaction to Professor Gates's arrest.

I would say that this is the sort of thing that angers upper middle-class black people even more than it angers anyone else, because they tend to be individuals who, by society's lights, are very accomplished," Mr Coates writes.

"Obama has lived as a member of that class for a large portion of his adult life... [his reaction is] not shocking... "

Law enforcement officials in the US are - understandably - unwilling to accept that police officers engage in racial profiling.

The LAPD, in its response to Professor Ayres's study, acknowledged that the statistics showed that African-Americans and Latinos were more likely to be stopped than white people, but refused to concede that racial bias was causing the disparities.

And in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Police Commissioner Robert Haas has insisted that Professor Gates's arrest was not motivated by racism, and that Sgt Crowley "basically did the best with the situation that was presented to him."

But African-Americans clearly believe that racial profiling is a big problem in the US.

The National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP) is spearheading a campaign to pass the End Racial Profiling Act, which would outlaw the practice.

With presidential backing, and the example of Professor Gates to grab the public's attention, it may not be long before Congress acts to make racial profiling a thing of the past.

I've written several times before about the amazing quest of Binyam Mohamed -- a British resident released from Guantanamo in February, 2009 after seven years in captivity -- to compel public disclosure of information in the possession of the British Government proving he was tortured while in U.S. custody. At the center of Mohamed's efforts lie the claims of high British government officials that the Obama administration has repeatedly threatened to cut off intelligence-sharing programs with the U.K. if the British High Court discloses information which British intelligence officials learned from the CIA about how Mohamed was tortured. New statements from the British Foreign Secretary yesterday -- claiming that Hillary Clinton personally re-iterated those threats in a May meeting -- highlight how extreme is this joint American/British effort to cover-up proof of Mohamed's torture.

In August 2008, the British High Court ruled in Mohamed's favor, concluding in a 75-page ruling (.pdf) that there was credible evidence in Britain's possession that Mohamed was brutally tortured and was therefore entitled to disclosure of that evidence under long-standing principles of British common law, international law (as established by the Nuremberg Trials and the war crimes trials of Yugoslav leaders, among others), and Britain's treaty obligations (under the Convention Against Torture). But as part of that ruling, the Court redacted from its public decision seven paragraphs which detailed the facts of Mohamed's torture -- facts which British intelligence agents learned from the CIA -- based on the British Government's representations that both the Bush and Obama administrations had threatened to cut off intelligence-sharing with Britain if those facts were disclosed, even as part of a court proceeding.

* * *

Also in May, The Washington Post's Dan Froomkin -- in a column entitled "President Obama Joins the Cover-Up" -- wrote: "The president who came into office promising to restore our international reputation and return responsibility to government now seems to be buying into the belief that covering up our sins is better than coming clean."

This has gone well beyond a passive failure to apply the rule of law (and comply with our treaty obligations) by prosecuting. Instead, these are now active efforts to cover-up war crimes. The British Foreign Secretary insists that Obama's Secretary of State personally threatened that the U.S. would conceal information about terrorist plots from the British if the facts of Mohamed's torture were disclosed, while the Obama administration actively seeks to block American courts from examining the same evidence. Can anyone justify that?

Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, warned David Miliband that America would consider cutting security co-operation with the UK if a British court releases information about a former Guantanamo Bay detainee, two judges have been told.

Mrs Clinton personally told the Foreign Secretary that the US government would consider the dramatic step if a short summary of the treatment of Binyam Mohamed is placed in the public domain, the High Court was told.

* * *

At a hearing in London on Wednesday, Guy Vassall-Adams, representing the media, argued that keeping the information secret would provide a "veto" to the alleged perpetrators or human rights abuses.

But Karen Steyn, representing Mr Miliband told the court that the Foreign Secretary was convinced that publishing the redacted paragraphs would seriously threaten the "unique" intelligence sharing relationship between Britain and the US, despite the change in administration.

"The conversations that he has had with the US Secretary of State are part of the information that he has taken into account in forming that assessment," she said.

In lengthy and heated exchanges, Lord Justice Thomas repeatedly pressed Miss Steyn on whether Mr Miliband had been told personally that a warning had come directly from the Obama administration.

Insisting that there could be no "wriggle room" on the issue, the judge said: "He (Mr Miliband) understands the position of the US government is that it would risk the intelligence relationship with the United Kingdom with the result that there would be a serious risk to the national security of the UK and that would endanger the men, women and children of the United Kingdom " that is really what Mrs Clinton is saying according to the Foreign Secretary?"

Miss Steyn said that Mr Miliband had made it "absolutely plain".

The judge ordered a transcript of the hearing to be sent to the Foreign Secretary directly to give him an opportunity to make clarify what he meant.

At a press conference in Washington later alongside Mrs Clinton, Mr Miliband said: “Our two countries have a uniquely close intelligence sharing relationship.

“It is a relationship which is based on deep trust and a fundamental principle is that we do not disclose each other’s intelligence publicly.”

Mrs Clinton refused to comment directly on proceedings in the High Court, saying that: “The issue of intelligence sharing is critically important to our two countries and we both have a stake in ensuring it continues to the fullest extent possible.”

People really don't react all that well when you attack them, you know that?

Cycloptichorn wrote:

People really don't react all that well when you attack them, you know that?

Are you being ironic on purpose Cyclo?

This whole conversation started when you and Fox started chiding Diest for laughing at a woman who was using a sales pitch to make some dough

But that's not true. You are dishonestly characterizing (i.e. attacking) Aidan and me with this line:

Quote:

This whole conversation started when you and Fox started chiding Diest for laughing at a woman who was using a sales pitch to make some dough

This whole conservation started when Aidan, I and others expressed our opinion that unethical business practices are not something that should be condoned, approved, or a source of amusement, and some decided to defend unethical business practices as bonafide, proper, okay, and acceptable.

But that's not true. You are dishonestly characterizing (i.e. attacking) Aidan and me with this line:

Quote:

This whole conversation started when you and Fox started chiding Diest for laughing at a woman who was using a sales pitch to make some dough

This whole conservation started when Aidan, I and others expressed our opinion that unethical business practices are not something that should be condoned, approved, or a source of amusement, and some decided to defend unethical business practices as bonafide, proper, okay, and acceptable.

Foxfyre wrote:

But that's not true. You are dishonestly characterizing (i.e. attacking) Aidan and me with this line:

Quote:

This whole conversation started when you and Fox started chiding Diest for laughing at a woman who was using a sales pitch to make some dough

This whole conservation started when Aidan, I and others expressed our opinion that unethical business practices are not something that should be condoned, approved, or a source of amusement, and some decided to defend unethical business practices as bonafide, proper, okay, and acceptable.

Yeah, that's what I said. However, you made it personal yourself Fox with statements such as 'not everyone is like them, Aidan.'

If the people in question got the products they wanted, at a fair price, and they are happy with those products, there's nothing unethical here; the business owner gave the customers what they wanted. However, you have chosen to make a value judgment upon Diest and I for laughing at this. In fact, it is you and Aidan who decided to play judgey judge of others here, not Diest and I....

And there's little doubt that your interest in this stems from the fact that we were laughing at a bunch of McCain supporters. Like I said earlier - drop the holier-than-thou bullshit.

Cycloptichorn