Torture Amendment 1157

Here I was ready to forgive Joe Lieberman and then he does this:

“If you were in Congress, and wanted to pass a terrible law that you didn’t want anyone to notice, how would you do it? Think like a newspaperman. You’d insert it as an amendment in a huge bill with a lot of other things in it, and then have it passed just before a big holiday weekend, when everyone is going to be out having fun, not sitting inside paying attention to the legislation of the day. Then, when the holiday weekend was over, a few days later, there would be other news for people to pay attention to.

That’s exactly what’s just happened. The United States Senate has just approved a terrible law that offends the American tradition of freedom, and almost nobody has noticed it, because the law was passed just before Memorial Day weekend.

The law, amendment 1157 to H.R. 2346, has no name, although some are calling it the Censorship of Photographs of Future Torture Amendment. That’s a bit long-winded. Perhaps we had better just call it Torture Amendment 1157.”

What is this?

Torture Amendment 1157

“Never heard of torture amendment 1157? Don’t feel bad. It’s by design.

Torture amendment 1157 was passed on the eve of the Memorial Day weekend, so that no one would notice. Instead of paying attention to the particular legislative activities of the day before, Americans hit the beach, and then, when the Memorial Day weekend was over, the newspapers moved on to other stories.

Actually, few newspapers even acknowledged the existence of torture amendment 1157, given that they’ve laid off most of their journalistic staff. The small number of newspapers that did write about the amendment didn’t write about its full impact… read on down the page to learn about that.”

This passed on a voice vote — censoring us anonymously.  See why:

Democrats break the promise of open government

From Squido:  Torture Amendment 1157 is a rebellion against the Freedom of Information Act, one of the most powerful tools American citizens have to hold their government accountable. The amendment started as a cover for Barack Obama, who promised open government without interference with the Freedom of Information Act, but then changed his mind and declared his intention to refuse a Freedom of Information Act petition for a large set of photographs of acts of torture being committed by the U.S. military. At first, senators said that the amendment 1157 would merely keep those specific photographs secret.

However, Torture Amendment 1157 goes far beyond that. The amendment gives the Secretary of Defense the power to censor any photograph of any captured and held prisoner by the US military. It makes it almost impossible for the American public to know about prisoner abuse… read more about Torture Amendment 1157 and the Freedom of Information Act.”

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