Recently in Government Change Category

The United States Supreme Court reduced the amount of punitive damages Exxon Mobile will have to pay for its destruction of the Alaska coastline from $5 billion to $500 million.   This gift of funds comes on the heels of a reported $40 billion profit by the oil giant for the year 2007.  This is the largest annual profit for a corporation in history.

Originally a jury awarded the victims of the Exxon Valdez spill $5 billion in punitive damages.  Later an Appellate Court to $2.5 billion reduced that.  The Supreme Court showing they are more generous than any appellate jurisdiction reduced it to just $500 million.

The Exxon Valdez oil spill occurred in 1989 and the original jury verdict was made in 1994.  The giant oil corporation, by balking at paying the jury's award, was able to save $4.5 billion in penalties, plus the cost of money over 14 years.    If Exxon had put the original award of $5 billion into a certificate of deposit at 7%, it would have earned $500 million in interest in less than two years.

That's Exxon's punishment for its reckless misconduct in spilling 10.8 million gallons into Prince William Sound.  It remains one of the greatest environmental disasters in our history. 

But the real story is the Court's decimation of the important role of punitive damages to punish outlaws and hold them publicly accountable.

Corporations and the corporate controlled media like to perpetuate the mythology that punitive damages awards are excessive.  Punitive damages are only used against a defendant when a jury has determined an egregious wrong was committed.   The jury in the Exxon Valdez found that the company knew that the Captain of the vessel was an alcoholic and that he had been drinking on the ship.  They also found that compensatory damages to commercial fisherman would never be sufficient for their loss.

In addition, the court found Exxon was slow to act to clean-up the disaster and executives of the company had little remorse for the actions of the company that led to the disaster.

The 33,000 plaintiffs in the case would have received $150,000 after the jury award, $75,000 after the reduction by the Appellate Court and $15,000 after the today's ruling.  Fifteen thousand dollars is the equivalent of $7,000 placed in a bank in 1994 at five percent interest.

The Court's ruling is a travesty for protecting the environment.  Scientists have concluded it will take over 30 years for the coastline to recover.  There is no reason, given the new guidelines for punitive damages, that giant corporations should fear be deterred from reckless or intentional misconduct, as long as they have correctly calculated their economic risks. 

Environmental destruction, contaminated foods, toxic products, and dangerous toys for children will not be detrrred as a result of this decision. 

There's other lesson from the Exxon Valdez case.  Corporations now are assured that if they stretch litigation out and get to a very friendly Supreme Court they can maximize their profit and limit their liability.  The only real danger they face is from a qualified attorney in front of a jury who can justly determine the damages.  

That's why corporations are supporting John McCain for president.  With four right-wingers just waiting for one more vote, the election of McCain guarantees a decade of corporate protection at the U.S. Supreme Court.

Across the board the right-wing minority on the Supreme Court relishes its power to eviscerate the rights of consumers whenever it can scare up one more vote.   Check the recent history on prescription drugs and medical devices.  

We need the Supremes to sing a different tune.  That will only be possible if we elect a candidate for change in November.  He's not the old white guy riding in a golf cart with President Bush.

Onward,

Richard Alexander

The statue of Justice atop the U.S. Supreme Court wears a blindfold. 

No one would drive a car in that condition. 

However, when it comes to the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard for sideview mirrors, the U.S. government agency in charge of auto safety is not only blind, but also oblivious to the simplest and easiest method readily available to reduce highway carnage.  And Detroit, as usual, is equally incompetent, acquiescing to a system that it knows is unsafe.

Most freeway collisions are caused by a lane change into an occupied lane or rear ending a car while looking back to determine if an adjacent lane is open. 

Preventing many of these collisions, and in many cases resulting rollovers, is simple.  Set sideview mirrors to the blind spot and only use the interior mirror for a view to the rear.  That is the practice followed by racecar drivers, savvy traffic officers and professional truckers, crash reconstructionists and anyone who studies highway accidents, deaths and injuries. 

On the other hand the Federal Safety Standard for outside mirrors assumes that the sideview mirror should operate as a rearview mirror and be set to see traffic behind the vehicle.  Not only is that a tragic mistake, it is truly dumb.

The standard reads like it was written by one of those "easy set-up" manuals every Santa Claus must endure on Christmas Eve.

 S5.2 Outside rearview mirror--driver's side. Field of view. Each passenger car shall have an outside mirror of unit magnification. The mirror shall provide the driver a view of a level road surface extending to the horizon from a line, perpendicular to a longitudinal plane tangent to the driver's side of the vehicle at the widest point, extending 2.4 m out from the tangent plane 10.7 m behind the driver's eyes, with the seat in the rearmost position. The line of sight may be partially obscured by rear body or fender contours. The location of the driver's eye reference points shall be those established in Motor Vehicle Safety Standard No. 104 (§571.104) or a nominal location appropriate for any 95th percentile male driver. [Emphasis added.]

The standard presumes side mirrors should be used to provide a rearward view back along the side of the vehicle which can be "partially obscured" by the car's body.

Designing sideview mirrors to see traffic directly behind a vehicle, eliminates the most critical viewing need: clearing the blind spot, where potential death lurks in a lane change at 75 mph.  It is far more important to see traffic in the blind spot at the side of a vehicle than to see what is behind.

Make your cars freeway safe.

The next time you are stopped for a traffic light set your side mirrors to show you cars in your blind spots.  These are vehicles that you will not be able to see in your interior rearview mirror.

Once on a freeway with your adjusted mirrors, follow this procedure when making a lane change and put yourself in that top category of professional drivers, just like Scott Dixon, Mario Andretti, Ed Carpenter, A. J. Foyt, Victor Meira and Graham Rahal, who use this same procedure to avoid lane change crashes:  

1.  Turn signal.

2.  Check rearview mirror for advancing traffic.

3.  A momentary shift of your eyes to the sideview mirror instantly will tell you if there is a car in your blind spot.

4.  Make sure traffic is safely ahead so you can avoid an unexpected emergency.

5.  In tight traffic, shift your foot above the brake pedal, just in case you need to brake for an emergency. 

6.  Now reconfirm your blind spot is free for your lane change.

This procedure gives you a substantial safety advantage because it minimizes your "look back" time.  

Many people look back as long as 2 to 3 seconds and ignore traffic developments ahead of them.  

Next time you are a passenger check it out.  Silently count the seconds a driver devotes to looking back over their shoulder and remember at 70 mph you are traveling 105 feet a second.  In two seconds you have covered two-thirds of a football field.  Warning: this can be a frightening experience.

The Federal Safety Standard for Sideview Mirrors should be changed, as well as the way we teach new drivers, especially teenagers, to adjust and use their mirrors to avoid lane change collisions and rollovers.

The current "safety" regulation induces collisions that easily could be avoided.  In addition to rear end collisions, SUV rollovers commnly occur as a result of last minute attempts by drivers to swerve when making a lane change to avoid a crash.   The abrupt swerve of a poorly designed, top-heavy vehicle is a design trap waiting to ensnare the innocent.   And while SUVs are losing the luster as the vehicle of choice because of the high cost of gas, they will continue to be with us for years simply because on the huge numbers of vehicles purchased in the past.

The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration must revise the current unsafe standard.  No driver should be taught to set mirrors to avoid a direct view at blind spots.  As for the government's apparent disabilities, we can only call attention to them and hope they remedy the problem.  All they have to do is take off the blinders to see danger lurking in the blind spot.

Onward,

Richard Alexander

Trust-busting president Teddy Roosevelt railed against the fat cats of his time. So did Louisiana Governor and U.S. Senator Huey Long, as flawed as he was. We need people like that in office today, because the fat cats are still fat and getting fatter - often at the expense of the handicapped, the mentally retarded, children and others who are dispossessed.

Our campaign system is skewed toward the wealthy. Corporate money flows into the election coffers of politicians, like wine into a wino. They're drunk on it. And while they insist it doesn't affect their decisions, it does buy a donor access. And that can often lead to incredible government subsidies for their interests.

A public official always will meet with someone who kept his or her political career alive. It's unfair to the rest of us.

When was the last time you heard of a working class mother holding a gala fundraiser for a candidate?  Right. Never. Corporations that get huge tax breaks from their Capitol Hill contacts could care less about her.

They count on infusions of money, the life blood of politics. And they return the favor 10-fold or more with subsidies for corporations. That is not a fair society. That is a recipe for upheaval.

It's government for sale. Step right up and write a check. Californians made a damaging, self-defeating mistake in 2006 when they voted down Proposition 86.   

On May 18, 2008, Brian Riedl wrote in a scathing San Jose Mercury News opinion piece that the latest farm bill would force Americans to pay billions of dollars in subsidies to millionaire agribusinesses. As he said, farm subsidies have long been America's largest corporate welfare program.

These subsidies aren't for the dying breed of small mom-and-pop farmers, the hardworking people who get up at dawn to milk the cows, plow the fields and then go home weary only to rise again.

Richard Holober, Executive director of the Consumer Federation of California, writes that since 2004, Chevron gave $3 million in political contributions in California. "For a company that made a record $14 billion in profits last year,'' he wrote, "it was money well spent." Despite public indignation, big oil crushed a proposed state tax on windfall oil profits."

The timeworn adage is that "money is the mother's milk of politics." And so it is. But whose money? And to what end?

Politicians need money to get their messages out. But from whom?  Campaign finance reform is long overdue. Let the money be from us, not from corporations. Let our elected representatives be beholden to the people, and the people only. 

We made a big mistake in the U.S. treating corporations as citizens, with the rights of people.  The Founders of this country never intended that.  Corporations do not have inalienable rights.

Onward,

Richard Alexander

 

The late Congressman Tom Lantos in November 2007 lambasted Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang for outing a Chinese journalist who was arrested as a result of information provided to the communist government by Yahoo.  Lantos called Yang a "moral pigmy" for caving in to a request of the Chinese government for disclosure of evidence used to prosecute a journalist and send him to prison.

Now, the House of Representatives by a vote of 293-129 has capitulated on a major civil liberty by indemnifying telecommunications companies for committing the same act in this country.   If these changes to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act pass the Senate it will insulate telecommunications companies from lawsuits for the Bush Administration's warrantless eavesdropping on phone and computer lines.

Some will argue there is a big difference between the totalitarian government of the Chinese and the current Bush Administration.

The current Bush administration is decidedly authoritarian and acts very much like the Chinese government in many ways.

The Chinese torture political prisoners; the Bush Administration tortures political prisoners.

The Chinese are not bound by Constitutional principles; the Bush Administration does not see itself bound by Constitutional principles.  

The Chinese run an oppressive political machine that squelches free speech; the Bush-Rove operation has attempted to do likewise.  

The Chinese spy on their citizens; the Bush Administration spies on its citizens and supports the wholesale investigation of telephone records, without a warrant or respecting existing statutory safeguards. 

Both governments use the ruse of national security to justify their actions.  If you have been thinking about boycotting the Chinese Olympics advertisers, which is a very good idea, we need equivalent action in the U.S. against the U.S. government.

To allow communications companies to give up confidential telephone records to the government on request is an outrageous erosion of civil liberties.  It is the same as Yahoo executives declaring they must follow the law in China.  The despicable acts our government have asked of the telecom companies are headed towards becoming sanctified by law.

Benjamin Franklin said, "Those who give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

This administration, using 9/11 as a bloody shirt, have continually worked to erode the Constitution and basic liberties.  What Bush and a previous Republican majority in Congress have done is so outrageous that even a fundamentally conservative court struck down the statute they enacted to suspend the constitutional right of habeas corpus. 

In Boumediene v. Bush, decided June 2008 the Supreme Court held that individuals on American soil at Guantanamo Bay could not be denied access to the courts protected by via a writ of habeas corpus.   The 5-4 decision has been heavily criticized by John McCain.  Mr. McCain believes that people held in American prisons at Guantanamo should not have the right to have our courts decide if their imprisonment for years is legal.

Since when is it OK for a free nation to arrest any person, for any conduct, and then pass a law to prohibit them from asking a court to decide if their imprisonment is legal?  This is the United States of America, not the 20^th century Soviet Union.  

Professor Richard Epstein, University of Chicago Law School, wrote an amicus brief for the prisoners.  He got it right in an op-ed to the New York Times: "Boumediene v. Bush is not a license to allow hardened terrorists to go free. It is a rejection of the alarmist view that our fragile geopolitical position requires abandoning our commitment to preventing Star Chamber proceedings that result in arbitrary incarceration."

Our four arch-conserative justices were just one vote away from holding that allowing the writ of habeas corpus would constitute reckless judicial intervention in military matters.  I call them the TSARs [Thomas, Scalia, Alito and Roberts] because thats what we would have for a Supreme Court if McCain gets elected and gives them one more vote.

But for the intercession of a Democratic Congress in 2006, the foundations of a totalitarian state were underway, which is why this most recent vote to endorse surveillance of the telecoms is a total outrage.  Spying on citizens, locking up people and denying them the writ of habeas corpus and condoning torture are not the hallmarks of a free society or a public morality worth emulating.   I have written about the Bush Administrations wholesale abuse of the Constitution before.

The bill approved on June 20, 2008 allows for mass, untargeted and unwarranted surveillance of all communications coming in to and out of the United States.  The courts' role is that of a rubber stamp and it is useless;  the government can continue spying on our communications even after the FISA court has objected.  293 "representatives" [a classic oxymoron] approved a wholesale giveaway of our Fourth Amendment rights.

Tom Lantos must be rolling over in his grave.  His own beloved country is advocating a national policy to legalize the very immoral acts that he condemned Yahoo for committing in communist China.

Those who forget history are condemned to relive it. 

Tom Lantos was all too aware of the slippery slope that leads to totalitarianism, having survived the Nazi regime.  To say that it cannot happen in this country is to ignore history. It can happen anywhere. To say that it is not happening in this country is to ignore reality. 

If we are to preserve "liberty and justice for all" we must be resoundingly say "no" to giving up rights here, and then there, and then everywhere.   Freedom is nonnegotiable.  That must apply to the Bush administration, to telecom companies, and to corporate executives.  If freedom is to flourish good men and women cannot be idle.  This 293-129 vote is a bad idea.

As Dante said, "the hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in times of moral crisis preserve their neutrality."

My views of the Surveillance Bill were best expressed by Rep. Zoe Lofgren, a leading voice of reason on the House Judiciary Committee.  On the floor of the House she said: " Mr. Speaker, this bill goes far beyond  what is necessary and what was agreed to by the Director of National Intelligence. All of us agree that foreign-to-foreign communications need to be available for surveillance. However, this bill would grant the Attorney General the ability to wiretap anybody, anyplace, anytime, without court review, without any checks and balances. This unwarranted, unprecedented measure would simply eviscerate the fourth amendment that protects the privacy not of terrorists, but of Americans. I strongly oppose this warrantless surveillance measure."

Well said Representative Lofgren. Thank you.

The Senate must kill this bill.  

Filibuster if they must, but they must kill it for the sake of "liberty and justice for all."

It is a lesson Congressman Tom Lantos knew well.

Onward, 

Richard Alexander

 

 

For those of us who cherish civil liberties, the last thing we need is Sen. John McCain in the Oval Office.   What many people don't think about when pulling the lever in the voting booth is that the president appoints judges that control their lives - not only appointments to the U.S. Supreme Court, but up and down the federal judiciary.

Senator McCain's "positions are nearly identical to the president's on abortion and the types of judges he says he would appoint to the courts,"  "How Close McCain Is to Bush Depends on the Issue," New York Times, June 17, 2008.

President Bush's arch-conservative choices for the Supreme Court are one vote away from a majority.  One more appointment by either President Bush or Mr. McCain, if elected president, would mean a stunning reversal for human rights.

On June 12, 2008 the Supreme Court by just a 5-4 vote held that terror suspects held at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay could not be denied the right to file a habeas corpus petition to challenge why they were being held.

The news stories of the day claimed a great triumph for democracy. The linked piece is just one example of many television, radio and press stories that totally missed the point.  

To anyone who claimed this was a "great triumph" or the like, that's a frightening conclusion.

This decision was a near disaster. 

Habeas corpus should be protected by a 9-0 vote.  

This 5-4 decision mirrors the U.S. criminal justice system, which has the highest number of people behind bars in the world.  Even more than in China.  That is a stunning indictment of a "sink or swim" society and raises serious questions about the law that your courts are enforcing and just how uncivilized a society we have allowed the United States to have become.  Law and order is fine, but for all the law, we don't have much order.

The statute denying the historic protection of habeas corpus with the purpose of taking away the supervisory function of the courts was drafted and supported by John McCain. And his favorite judges - the kind he would appoint - voted against this necessary constitutional restraint on illegal government actions.

Chief Justice John Roberts, and associate justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas - whom Bush senior lied about when he said Thomas was the most qualified person he could appoint - all were the dissenters. 

Thomas, Scalia, Alito and Roberts, our TSARs in waiting, would love to have just one more reactionary vote to chisel away more of the underpinnings of our Constitution and put an end to individual rights.

Here's how it works for the TSARs:  Business and government uber alles. Personal rights last.  

In March a 4-4 split court in Warner-Lambert v. Kent didn't have the five votes needed to take on the question whether a product liability claim could be brought be against a manufacturer of an FDA approved drug. 

You were one vote away from losing your personal right to sue for personal injuries caused by dangerous drugs: Trasylol which causes kidney failure, Ortho Evra that causes stroke and heart attacks, MRI contrast solutions with gadolinium that are lethal for kidney patients, Zyprexa that causes diabetes and Vioxx the pain killer that kills. And those are just a few of the currently dangerous drugs without opening the archives.

With one more vote the United States Supreme Court could have granted legal immunity to pharmaceutical manufacturers on the legal theory that once a defective drugs had been approval by the FDA, even though proven to be unsafe and dangerous, no further questions can be asked in a court of law.  

The TSARs wants to turn over total control of regulating drugs to the FDA, a proven administrative disaster, and allow drug companies to profit by selling highly questionable, and sometimes known dangerous drugs, without allowing victims a chance to hold them responsible in front of a judge and jury.

Don't doubt for a minute that isn't likely to happen.

That's why we need a Democratic president.

Voters should stand proud of the voice they gave to Obama and Clinton. It was an historic race.  Sen. Clinton made a spectacular run against a culture of misogyny and Sen. Obama proved it was the person, and not the color, that counted.

But it can be even more.

An Obama-Clinton ticket means more than the vote's of18 million Clinton supporters and it's more than merely seeking women to support the Democratic ticket.  It would show Obama's commitment to real change at two levels.  

First, at a very personal level, Obama could show that to change the country he is willing to change himself.  

Secondly, that leadership action would cement his position as the most committed Democratic leader since Franklin Roosevelt.

USA Today on June 10 2008 described on page one the changes on abortion, job bias, and campaign finance and racial polices that have occurred since the retirement of Sandra Day O'Connor from the Supreme Court in January 2006.  

In short, Justice O'Connor's legacy has faded. 

Imagine how bad it would be with the next Supreme Court justice appointed by McCain, giving the TSARs a solid Supreme Court majority.

We are on the cusp.  

A Democrat in the White House is a must.  

An Obama-Clinton ticket guarantees a Democratic win - a win that we must have to protect ourselves against right-wing abuse on the Supreme Court and to preserve human rights.

This is not the time for risk. There is way too much to lose.  There is so much to protect.

Onward.

Richard Alexander

May 21, 2008 I shook hands with Mary Tillman, mother of Pat Tillman. a U.S. Ranger who died on April 22, 2004 in Afghanistan, near the Pakistan border. Tillman was slaughtered by American troops for no reason, with gross indifference and in direct violation of the rules of engagement.

"Friendly fire" and "fratricide" are oxymorons to describe this outrage by out-of-control soldiers lusting for blood and raging to kill someone, anyone, even their own, as it turned out.  The whole episode reeks with insanity.

Tillman's death was wrong.  

Worse was the cover-up by the military afterward, first reported by the Washington Post on May 4, 2005.  That was when the lies began to unravel.

There is strong evidence that complicit in the torrent of fabrications, distortions and lies that followed Tillman's death was the whole chain of command, including the Secretary of Defense.  That is what Ms. Tillman's book is about.  

Speaking before a hometown crowd of 400 attending a San Jose Chamber of Commerce evening to honor women, Ms. Tillman read the following except from her book "Boots on the Ground by Dusk: My Tribute to Pat Tillman."

As she spoke, I was struck by power of this mother delivering in quiet, strong tones an eloquent message that pulled no punches.  It struck my heart.  I whispered to Meri Maben, a senior assistant for Congressional Representative Mike Honda, a San Jose Democrat, who was seated next to me, "we stand for this."

When Mary Tillman concluded I stood to applaud and the words "right on" came easily. Meri Maben stood too.  

We were the only people in the room of 400 to stand and applaud a powerful patriotic statement condemning a government that truly deserves to be condemned.  Wish I had asked everyone at our table to stand as well.  

Perhaps all in the room were dumbstruck and immobilized by the truth. 

I cannot believe they disagreed or that many were supporters of this war, since nobody is willing to sacrifice to support this war, unless paying $4.50 a gallon for gasoline is suffering.  

And I cannot believe the whole room was filled with fire-breathing neo-cons.  

Maybe this is the way they act at Chamber of Commerce dinners, shying away from the overt political statement to avoid offending anyone.  

Anyone who supports this war deserves to be offended, when they get up in the morning, when they go to bed at night and several times during the day. 

Maybe they were embarrassed by Ms. Tillman's forthright condemnation of the Bush Administration. 

Maybe they are just afraid to stand up and wrap their arms around this grieving mom.  Not me.  Not Meri Maben.

Maybe I shouldn't attend Chamber of Commerce dinners, even when they are for a good cause.

Below are the words written by Pat Tillman's brother Kevin that brought me to my feet. 

"Somehow we were sent to invade a nation because it was a direct threat to the American people, or to the world, or harbored terrorists, or was involved in the September 11 attacks, or received weapons-grade uranium from Niger, or had mobile weapons labs, or WMD, or had a need to be liberated, or we needed to establish a democracy, or stop an insurgency, or stop a civil war we created that can't be called a civil war even though it is.

"Something like that.

"Somehow our elected leaders were subverting international law and humanity by setting up secret prisons around the world, secretly kidnapping people, secretly holding them indefinitely, secretly not charging them with anything, secretly torturing them.  Somehow that covert policy of torture became the fault of a few "bad apples" in the military.

"Somehow back at home, support for the soldiers meant having a kindergartner scribble a picture with crayons and send it overseas, or slapping stickers on cares, or lobbying Congress for an extra pad in a helmet.

"It's interesting that a soldier on his third or fourth tour should care about a drawing of a fie year-old, or a faded sticker on a car as his friends die around him, or an extra pad in a helmet, as if it will protect him when an IED throws his vehicle fifty feet into the air as his body comes apart and his skin melts to the seat.

"Somehow the more soldiers that die, the more legitimate the illegal invasion becomes.

"Somehow American leadership, whose only credit is lying to its people and illegally invading a nation, has been allowed to steal the courage, virtue, and honor of its soldiers on the ground.

"Somehow those afraid to fight in an illegal invasion decades ago are allowed to send soldiers to die for an illegal invasion they started.

"Somehow faking character, virtue and strength is tolerated.

"Somehow profiting from the tragedy and horror is tolerated.

"Somehow the deaths of tens, in not hundreds of thousands of people are tolerated.

"Somehow subversion of the Bill of Rights and The Constitution is tolerated.

"Somehow suspension of Habeas Corpus is supposed to keep this country safe.

"Somehow torture is tolerated.

"Somehow lying is tolerated. 

"Somehow American leadership managed to created a more dangerous world.

"Somehow a narrative is more important than reality.

"Somehow America has become a country that projects every thing that it is not and condemns everything that it is.

"Somehow the most reasonable, trusted and respected country in the world has become one of the most irrational, belligerent, feared and distrusted countries in the world.

"Somehow being politically informed, diligent and skeptical has been replaced by apathy through active ignorance.

"Somehow the same incompetent, narcissistic, virtueless, vacuous, malicious criminals are still in charge of this country.

"Somehow this is tolerated.

"Somehow nobody is accountable for this.

"In a democracy, the policy of the leaders is the policy of the people. So don't be shocked when our grandkids bury much of this generation as traitors to the nation, to the world and to humanity.  Most likely, they will come to know that "somehow" was nurtured by fear, insecurity and indifference, leaving the country vulnerable to unchecked, unchallenged parasites."

The sooner a new U.S. Senate ratifies the Treaty for the International Criminal Court of Justice, and a new President signs it, the better.  That will provide The Hague with jurisdiction to conduct a proper and complete investigation of all the atrocities of the Iraq war. 

There's a lot to investigate.  

The morning after Ms. Tillman spoke the New York Times reported on May 22, 2008 the existence of a " painful report by the Justice Department's inspector general, based on the accounts of hundreds of F.B.I. agents who saw American interrogators repeatedly mistreat prisoners in ways that the agents considered violations of American law and the Geneva Conventions. According to the report, some of the agents began keeping a "war crimes file" -- until they were ordered to stop."  

"Hundreds of F.B.I. agents?"  This abuse isn't simply widespread.  It is rampant. 

And know this.  Those agents are patriots.  

No matter what the orders, they are keeping those war crimes files where no one will ever find them until the day of reckoning arrives. 

Mary Tillman, thank you for telling this brutal story, this black page in our history, that has so wounded you, your family and the nation.  Your loss is a  nightmare.  I am grateful for your sharing it with such eloquence.  It rings hard and clear.  It resonates with unmistakable truth.

Onward.

Richard Alexander