With Australian television drowning in American crime and legal fiction, Washington-based correspondent Mark Simkin offers a reality check on the flaws in the American justice system that can lead to death row.

Broadcast: 03/07/2007
Reporter: Mark Simkin
Network: Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC)

Transcript begins: “Hello and welcome to Foreign Correspondent. I’m Mark Simkin outside the Supreme court in Washington. Since moving here I’ve covered my fair share of crazy court cases: the Micheal Jackson trial, the Paris Hilton saga, the case where a judge sued his dry cleaners for $64 million dollars because they lost his pants. But the biggest problem with American justice is the least discussed … the words ‘equal justice under law’ are etched on the court behind me but that notion is a myth. The rich get the best justice money can buy … but the poor … they tend to get executed”

Watch the story for yourself (19min 22 sec in length) below by clicking on the play button:

If you can’t see the video player than you should open this URL in Windows Media Player: http://www.abc.net.au/foreign/content/2007/deadly_injustice_200k.asx

ABC TV’s team of Foreign Correspondents take you on a unique journey to places few others venture, for a colourful look at the culture and lifestyle of people who don’t usually make international headlines. Their mixture of serious and light-hearted stories will inform and entertain you.

The CIA is engaging in an unlawful practice – “extraordinary rendition” – abducting foreign nationals for detention and interrogation in secret overseas prisons. The practice is a violation of both international law and domestic law. There is no excuse for lowering American standards to the same despicable level of the terrorists they are fighting against.

Behind the US Government’s corruption of language lies a far greater perversion.

Beyond any shadow of a doubt, the ugliest phrase to enter the English language last year was “extraordinary rendition”. To those of us who love words, this phrase’s brutalisation of meaning is an infallible signal of its intent to deceive.

“Extraordinary” is an ordinary enough adjective, but its sense is being stretched here to include more sinister meanings that your dictionary will not provide: secret; ruthless; and extrajudicial.

- Salman Rushdie – Ugly phrase conceals an uglier truth

Watch the Evidence of Extraordinary Rendition Yourself

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s Hot Type program interviewed the man who uncovered the secret CIA program of rendition and torture – British journalist Stephen Grey. Watch the program below:

The renowned investigative journalists at PBS have also examined the extraordinary rendition process and are broadcasting their findings in early November. View the trailer below:

Amnesty International Condemns Extraordinary Rendition

This is what the respected non-government organisation Amnesty International recently had to say about extraordinary rendition:

Amnesty International is very concerned by the practice of “extraordinary renditions” in which the United States transfers individuals for detention and interrogation to countries with a record of using torture. U.S. laws and international treaties prohibit the transfer of suspects to countries where they are likely to face torture. The United States ratified the United Nation Convention Against Torture and adopted legislation to help implement the treaty obligations through the Foreign Affairs Reform and Restructuring Act of 1998 (“FARRA”). The Torture Convention prohibits nations from transferring persons to a country where there is substantial grounds to believe that torture will occur.

“The practice of extraordinary rendition is shrouded in secrecy and puts people at risk of torture and other human rights violations,” said Larry Cox, Amnesty International USA executive director. “The Bush administration justified some of these transfers by obtaining ‘diplomatic assurances’ from countries with dubious human rights records. That’s like the fox promising not to eat the hens before he goes into the coup.”

- Amnesty International Urges Congress to End “Extraordinary Rendition”

Further reading

Amnesty International believes that these practices are illegal because they bypass any judicial or administrative process such as extradition. Under international law, it is illegal to transfer people from one country to another without any kind of judicial or administrative process.

Moreover, most victims of “rendition” were arrested and detained illegally in the first place: some were abducted; others were refused access to any legal process. Many victims of “rendition” have been or continue to be held in prolonged arbitrary detention and they have been or continue to be subjected to enforced disappearance. All of the victims of “rendition” Amnesty International has interviewed have also said they were subjected to torture and other ill-treatment.

- Amnesty International – “Rendition” and secret detention: A global system of human rights violations: Questions and Answers

America is better than this. As a symbol of freedom and democracy throughout the world, the United States must hold itself to our own high standards. When we resort to the use of torture and abuse, we lower ourselves to the level of our enemies and defy the basic values that we hold dear.

- American Civil Liberties Union – Extraordinary Rendition Talking Points

Extraordinary rendition has become a state-sponsored form of kidnapping of those suspected of terrorism or involvement with terror groups. The countries to which most renditions have occurred — Egypt, Morocco, Syria and Jordan — have all been criticised for human rights violations and are known to torture suspects. For that reason, human rights groups consider rendition in violation of the UN Convention on Torture. Among those captives who claim to have been subjected to it are Australian citizen Mamdouh Habib, who was arrested on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border in 2001, taken to Egypt, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay before being released without charge in January.

- The Age newspaper – Rendition: isn’t that American for torture?

In the United States, the Bush Administration is again under fire for secretly authorising torture tactics during the interrogation of terrorism suspects.

Although the White House is insisting that the US does not injure prisoners, two separate, secret memos endorsing the harsh techniques have previously been exposed.

And there are also reports that secret CIA prisons holding terrorism suspects are still being run around the world.

Democrats are demanding that the Justice Department turn over the two secret memos, which explicitly authorise painful physical and psychological tactics – things like head-slapping, simulated drowning and freezing temperatures.

- ABC News – US denies breaking torture laws after memos exposed

With the demise of the free SMS / TXT service provided by Intazaar, several Australian readers of my blogs have asked which service I can recommend to replace it. I’ve tried quite a few including Motocrew, SMS Pup, but the best one was clearly Youtext.com.au but it doesn’t work anymore either

One of my readers Henry suggested BlueSkyfrog which has a 5 free SMS per day deal if you agree to get their email newsletter once a month.

When you signup BlueSkyfrog will send 2 separate confirmation codes to your mobile and email which you need to enter before it works. One bonus is that when you send someone a free SMS it appears to come from your phone so they can reply directly to you.
The character limit is 130 because they add this text at the end of each SMS “(free SMS @ blueskyfrog.com)”

To date I haven’t had any problem sending SMS’s to any Australian mobile network – they usually arrive at the destination within a few seconds, and there is no specific per day limit I can find.

Like Intazaar, Youtext shows your number as the sender when you send the SMS so any replies will go to your mobile phone, but unlike Intazaar only 140 characters are available for your message. The rest of the characters are reserved for a short promotional message from Youtext.

I plan to connect my mp3 player through the headphone jack to my sound system or set of computer speakers … how can I do this? – anonymous question from the internet

Firstly you need a home stereo system with an auxiliary (aux) RCA input (usually white/black on the left & red on the right) that isn’t used and an MP3 player like the ipod, iriver, Creative Zen etc …

Go to a computer store/electronics store and buy a cable with a 3.5mm headphone jack on one end and 2x RCA cable connections on the other end (see picture at right)

Plug the 3.5mm headphone jack into the MP3 player, plug the 2 x RCA cables into the auxiliary inputs of your sound system

You can buy such cables quite cheaply from your local computer store, electrical or hifi store, or online and get them posted to you.

Prices can range from a few dollars to over AUS$30 so make sure you dont get ripped off because regardless where you buy them the only thing that will vary is the length.

If you dont have a sound system you can buy a cheap set of computer speakers (as long as they have a cable that ends in a headphone jack), plug the headphone jack into your MP3 player, turn the speakers and the mp3 player on and enjoy listening to your music/audiobook/podcast