Is the U.S. maintaining "secret prisons" in Eastern Europe?

Great Debates
1

Reports have surfaced that the U.S., specifically the CIA, is maintaining secret detention centers at locations in Eastern Europe – Poland, Romania and Kosovo have been mentioned. The European Commission has warned that any country found hosting the secret prisons could be penalized. http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article329978.ece Meanwhile, Dick Marty, a Swiss senator who is heading the investigation on behalf of the Council of Europe, says he thinks the presence of long-term detention centers like the Guantanamo Bay prison is unlikely, but it is possible there are U.S. facilities that have held detainees for brief periods, up to 30 days. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-prisons26nov26,1,3952054.story?coll=la-headlines-world

Issues for debate:

  1. Do these “secret prisons” exist?

  2. Is there any justification for them?

2

Well, I think so. It’s the sort of thing I expect from Bush, I’ve heard it claimed from multiple sources. Here’s my Pit thread on the topic; note some posters actually defend it as a good idea.

No. Tossing people without trial into a secret prison is police state behavior. Besides, I’m quite sure we’re torturing them.

3

Why bother, when “extraordinary rendition” is available? :slight_smile:

The Wikipedia now has a page up on the “Black sites scandal” – lotsa informative links: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_site

4

  1. Yes, I think there are secret prisons.

  2. Whether or not they are justified isn’t something I can speculate on until I know more about it. Not everyone the U.S. captures is legally entitled to a trial in my opinion. Nor are they legally entitled to be part of the public record.

The war on terror is largely an intelligence war, and in an intelligence war there are several justified reasons for keeping secret who you have in custody.

5

Care to elaborate? On either part of that?

6

Eastern Europe? They’re not trying. They should’ve cut a deal with the Russians and put the secret prisions in Siberia. Eastern Europe just gives a wannabe feeling while Siberia gives a hard-core Stalinist feel.

7

Yup. Just the thing we need. A non-elected bureaucrat appointed by a non-elected head of a non-elected commission working within a system with a serious and running democratic deficit, for which all decisions, unless specifically marked so, are secret from the public whose interests it’s supposed to represent and a public which in any case look upon it with a mixture of indifference, disgust and deep suspicion. Yup that’s just the kind of organisation we need to lecture democratic states on the proper implementation of democracy. This absurd farce has all the ingredients of a UN human rights organisation headed by Zimbabwe or a UN free speech convent in Morocco.

8

And the institutional nature/structure of the European Commission and the Council of Europe is relevant to the OP’s issues – how, exactly? :dubious:

9

An organisation with so little democratic legitimacy of its own should perhaps be a little more wary of questioning democratic nations supposedly democratic failings lest it conjure up images of the coal mine calling the kettle black.

oh I almost forgot… :dubious:

10

:rolleyes: I beg your pardon, but when the pot calls the kettle black, the kettle is black, and the pot’s own color irrelevant to the discussion.

11

Regarding the above, see the logical fallacy of argumentum ad hominem: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem

12

BTW, was this sentence intended to characterize the European Commission, the Council of Europe, or the Bush Administration?

13

Not entirely sure though I wouldn’t be surprised.

It depends on exactly who they are keeping there and for what reason…and what exactly is being done to them in our name. As we don’t really know (lots of speculation but not a lot of hard facts, at least not that I’ve seen) its all speculation at this point. I would guess the ‘justification’ is the same as that used to keep the folks at Gitmo…i.e. they aren’t prisoners of war but enemy combatants.

-XT

14

When you’re finished explaining why the EU commission is worst than the North-Korean government, will you care to say something relevant to the OP?
I note that you didn’t mention the threat of muslim immigration in Europe, for once. Kudos for that.

15

Oh! Thanks for the info about people not being legally entitled to these things. I used to believe tat the USA was a democracy where secret arrests without trial weren’t legal. Sorry, my mistake.

Not that you’ll ever know whether people secretly arrested belong or not to the “not legally entitled” category, but can you define it, for the sake of it?

16

Y’see, I just don’t think this argument holds up.

In my experience in Washington the major reason that administrations keep things covered up is because they know the electorate would be pissed off if it came to light. In other words, they know what they’re doing won’t stand the light of day.

If they wanted more ‘secret’ prisoners it would be easy enough to have prisoners with undisclosed identities and undisclosed locations. Voila.

But to have secret prisons overseas outside the knowledge of the public and the press? That can only be meant to keep secret things they believe will cause them pain upon revelation.

17

I disagree…the arguement certainly does hold up. My problem is that the entire thing is (IMHO) a slippery slope. Personally I’m not going to shed many tears about holding some guy like Zakawi indefinitely without trial, nor am I going to lose sleep if they rough him up to try and get some info about his various activities. The problem is, once this genie is out of the bottle its going to be hard to put it back in, and I can see where this could be abused…big time. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if its already being abused…and THATS what I’m personally worried about. Oh, I can see WHY they might think it necessary (anyone who’s seen the OJ trial alone could probably see why dumping a Zakawi into our system might be, um, a cluster fuck). I just think that this is a slippery slope that could lead to some rather nasty consequences down the road.

I’m less sure of this to be honest. I think the main reason they do it in other countries isn’t because they fear pissing off ‘the electorate’, its because some of the things they are doing would be illegal if they were done here in the US…such as holding these folks without charging them. Also they probably don’t want to entangle the issue with our legal system. Finally, they probably don’t want to let it become public knowledge they have terrorist X…as letting everyone know this would tip off terrorist Y that he might be getting a knock on the door sometime soon.

I doubt they could unless they kept it completely black…in which case what difference between holding them out in Nevada in complete secrecy and holding them in another country? And if it leaked out you can bet your bottom dollar SOME judge somewhere would be willing to raise a stink…if for nothing else than to get their pictures in the papers.

Well, outside the knowledge of the public and the press doesn’t really distress me to be honest. Presumably its not outside the knowledge of the Senate and Congress who are our representatives. Now, if it IS outside the knowledge of both the Senate and the Congress (or some subcomittee of both bodies)…THEN I have a major problem.

-XT

18

Point of technicality: Not running secret prisons. Not very secret.

19

In Britain and elsewhere in Europe, Governments are under pressure for allowing transit to these extra-legal prisons:

"
Government challenged to account for ‘torture flights’

Richard Norton-Taylor
Wednesday November 30, 2005
The Guardian

The government and senior police officers will be taken to court unless they provide evidence they have investigated reports that CIA “torture flights” have landed in Britain or used British airspace, the Guardian has learned.

Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty, the civil rights group, has written to Jack Straw, the foreign secretary, and to chief constables, giving them two weeks to disclose what they know about the flights and demand assurances from the US that they would stop.

Article continues
If they refuse to show they have investigated the allegations, Liberty will take them to court in 14 days to demand a judicial review. It is illegal under British and international law, and under European and UN human rights conventions, to be complicit in torture. Under the 1988 Criminal Justice Act, torture is a criminal offence wherever it is committed.

Liberty has acted after the Guardian reported in September that aircraft used in secret operations involving the transfer of detained terrorist suspects to interrogation centres where they are likely to be tortured - known as “rendition” or “extraordinary rendition” - have flown into the UK at least 210 times since the September 11 2001 attacks on the US.

A 26-strong fleet run by the CIA has used 19 British airports and RAF bases, including Heathrow, Gatwick, Birmingham, Luton, Bournemouth and Belfast, RAF Northolt in north London, and RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire. The most used airport is Prestwick near Glasgow, which CIA aircraft have flown into and out from more than 75 times, the Guardian reported. The Commons foreign affairs committee has accused the government of having a “policy of obfuscation” and not answering questions “with the transparency and accountability required”.

Ministers have sidestepped parliamentary questions about the flights. While defence ministers say they keep records of all civil registered flights landing at military airfields, details of passengers are only required if they leave the airfield."
This of course is considerably improving the US’s reputation for democracy and liberty. :smiley:

20

You might have overlooked the part in your OP where Franco Frattini warns the EU member states that they could lose voting rights because he thinks their conduct might be in opposition to the EU foundation which according to him, and somewhat ludicrous, rests on a foundation of democracy. Which is somewhat ironic, seen as all EU member states without exception, have elected governments, while the EU commission Franco Frattini is a member of, is merely a bunch of appointed burecrats, with very little democratic validity, and an even worse democratic track record when it comes to such important areas as open and transparent as well as non corrupt government. And you know as well as me, had it been President Bush that had lambasted Canada or France on infringements of human rights or democracy or what not, there would have been no end to the ridicule he would have faced here on the SDMB.

Aptly enough the first google on Franco Frattini is a link to a BBC profile, which include these tidbits on Franco Frattini: That he does not welcome disagreement. That he is a low-profile technocrat. That he is someone who has always worked quietly, behind doors. A low-profile technocrat, working secretly behind closed doors, who does not welcome disagreement – is most certainly not a person that seems to have a firm grasp of what democracy ought be like.

Nonsense. It has nothing to do with ad hominems. I, unlike clairobscur who apparently has made it his speciality to come with little snide personal remarks, had not anywhere in this thread made any comment on any person, least of all any person on SDMB. If you think questioning the institutions of EU which make these accusations is not relevant to the issue, I beg to differ. Questioning political institutions is always valid, be it the Bush Administration or the EU commission – and especially so when said institutions are not democratically elected and consider secrecy the most noble of traits.