Torture Prosecutor Tops 70,000 Questions for Obama on Change.Gov

A whopping 70,000 questions poured into Change.gov over the past week, in response to the Obama transition team's call for citizen queries to the President-Elect. After votes from about 100,000 people, the top ranked question asks Obama whether he will appoint a special prosecutor to investigate allegations of torture and illegal surveillance by the U.S. government. I've been working with activist Bob Fertik to organize support for the question, and several progressive bloggers urged readers and Obama supporters to vote for it last week. Digby, who has written extensively about the Bush administration's abuse of the rule of law, recently reported on the progress:

I wrote a post about [an] initiative spearheaded by Ari Melber of The Nation and Democrats.com to ask President-elect Obama if he will appoint a special prosecutor to investigate war crimes in the Bush administration over at Change.gov. (In a previous round, it was the sixth most asked question...) This time, through their efforts, it's number one. This is particularly important, since the press has only asked Obama about this one time, last April. And a lot has happened since then, most obviously the fact that Vice President is all over television admitting to war crimes as if he's proud of it.

Then The New York Times picked up the news:

[T]he number one submission on the popular "Open for Questions" portion of the site might seem more than a little impolitic to [President Bush]: "Will you appoint a Special Prosecutor -- ideally Patrick Fitzgerald -- to independently investigate the gravest crimes of the Bush Administration, including torture and warrantless wiretapping," wrote Bob Fertik of New York, who runs the Web site, Democrats.com.

Though the Obama team has promised to answer some of the top questions as early as this week, they have not said whether they will respond to Mr. Fertik's, which has received more than 22,000 votes since the second round of the question-and-answer feature began on Dec. 30. The site logged more than 1.5 million votes for 20,000-plus questions... The second highest-ranked submission, which is about oversight of the nation's banking industry, is several thousand of votes behind the query about a special prosecutor. Mr. Fertik's question has been pushed to the top, in part, by a coalition of liberal bloggers...

The national press corps has not raised this issue with Obama since his victory. (When it surfaced in April, Obama said he would order his attorney general to "immediately review" the potential crimes.) And while the leading question in the last Change.gov forum was dispatched breezily -- Will you legalize marijuana? No. -- this one is far more challenging, both substantively and politically.

The Times notes that Obama's team has "not said" whether it will even answer Fertik's question, though ignoring the question that came in first out of 74,000 would turn this exercise into a farce. A terse, evasive answer would be similarly unacceptable. After all, there would be little point in this online dialogue if it reiterates things we already know, (Obama is not in N.O.R.M.L.), and refuses to provide new information.

That's why this may be the first big test for Change.gov as a genuinely interactive dialogue.

Thousands of Americans are asking whether President Obama will order an independent investigation to ensure our laws are enforced -- in an era when powerful people in government have engaged in criminal conduct and relentlessly tried to make their behavior off limits for media and political discussion. We expect a "yes," "no" or detailed explanation of how and when Obama and his aides will make this decision. Time is running out, of course, because the question must be answered, for Congress and the public, before Eric Holder's confirmation hearing. He must explain how he will restore independence, professionalism and the rule of law to a Justice Department that politicized U.S. attorneys and covered up torture and warrantless surveillance.

Law professor Jonathan Turley, a nonpartisan legal analyst who testified before Congress in favor of President Clinton's impeachment, recently explained that Holder simply should not be confirmed if he is not prepared to enforce the laws banning torture. "Eric Holder should be asked the same question that Mukasey refused to answer in his confirmation hearing: is waterboarding a crime?" Professor Turley stated. "If he refuses to answer or denies that it is a crime, he should not be confirmed. If he admits that it is a crime, he should order a criminal investigation." According to Change.gov, the crowds agree with the experts on this one.

Comments (19)

1. obama's gonna a need a big rug to sweep this under....

   maybe a global financial collapse will do it.

   Posted by frosty zoom at 01/08/2009 @ 10:34pm

2. Obama will ignore the war crimes & in doing so will have the support of most of his party's leaders in Congress.

   They & their Owners want to continue the imperial project abroad & this will necessitate further crimes.

   Legal precedents are the last thing they want.

   Posted by sloper at 01/09/2009 @ 04:10am

3. If we don't bring the government back down to the level of servant to the public good, we have changed the country towards the bad / dark side for an awful long time, and it will empower the public servants to even more dastardly crimes, pork, killings, illegal wars, more wars for profit, and financial meltdowns. The statement I keep hearing from the law breakers: "it's in the past, move on" is both shallow in its facts, and dangerous to the rule of law, and displays an arrogance to power that must be reigned in.

   Posted by lappercad at 01/09/2009 @ 1:16pm

4. Sadly, a torture prosecutor probably is just a Leftist wet dream. And to think that just a few decades ago it wasn't a dream but an American reality. Oh, how far we have fallen.

   Posted by dp33 at 01/09/2009 @ 3:26pm

5. What do you people know about torture? Try getting stuck in an elevator having to listen to "Yanni" for two hours......now THAT'S torture. Waterboarding? Bring it on, babee!

   Posted by uPay2Play1 at 01/09/2009 @ 10:08pm

6. This very well may be the last chance to get it right. The United States has a horrific past, beginning with slavery and the slaughter of indigenous native peoples, followed by naked imperialism and colonialism, then anti-Communist struggles involving right-wing death squads, and recently pre-emptive war for profit (oil). This being the beginning of the 21st century, with many conflicts and battles ahead, the citizens of the United States should decide whether to fight on as fascists or freemen.

   Posted by Tunnelrat at 01/10/2009 @ 12:25pm

7. We will never redeem our promise with torture on our conscience as a nation. We are not the kind of people who can get away with such a cynical doublespeak. Either we are too naive, too simple-minded or just too good, we have to stop doing what we were doing (and which has been shown not to work that well anyway) and return to who we really are.

   Posted by misskaren at 01/10/2009 @ 6:41pm

8. Why is it that these "liberal bloggers", you identify couch their presentation to Obama in the wussyist possible fashion? "Please, please, dear savior, please consider investigating the Bush Adminstration for its war crimes, please". If any of these soft-handed, exquisitely sensitive, keyboard-dependent types had spine they'd demand that he investigate these reptiles and threaten him with some form of direct action if he didn't. Obama has proven himself to be entirely amenable to threats. Some time back, after some pointed "inquiries" were made about its placement, his campaign pulled an internet ad that had appeared at Amazon on the same page as one touting the Mearshimer and Walt work, The Israel Lobby. Would I have to tell you how prompt and effusive the apologies were that came?

   Posted by john lowell at 01/10/2009 @ 8:57pm

9. Anyone who voted for Obama with the notion that he was liberal was obviously buying into the GOP line about him. He's far from liberal. He'd say he was a Pragmatist. I would say: have a cocktail, unless you can force him to do your bidding. The only way the US will change policies is when we are brought to our knees. And with the economy going the way it is, the hope is that it will happen without a violent incident.

   White Russians are yummy. The cocktail.

   Posted by blagowago at 01/10/2009 @ 10:08pm

10. Obama is milquetoast. He is a coward. He has no backbone. Everything he said in the campaign was a hoax. That's why he's silent about Gaza and that's why he will never have a special prosecutor like Fitzgerald to invetsigate. Because that will expose crimes by Israel, and that's the only reason. The cop-out will be a rubbishy "commission" which always whitewashes and covers everything up.The 9/11 and Warren Commissions to name two of many were a farce.If you want to finger criminals the only route is a special prosecutor. Barring that, it will be to our disgrace that other countries will have to do the dirty work for the US, and our respect will approach zero. It already is in the gutter. But our new milquetoast president, bought and paid for, will pretend we have to pay attention to the economy and "look to the future". Can you imagine if the judges at the Nuremberg trials dismissed them claiming "we have to look to the future".

    Posted by mystic7 at 01/10/2009 @ 11:43pm

11. Expect an encouraging but evasive answer, and no meaningful action. Hope to be surprised.

    Posted by mikecope at 01/11/2009 @ 06:01am

12. The entire world is watching Obama on torture, and he knows it. So I put the chances of a forceful prosecution of the criminals higher than seeing Rick Warren dance with Barney Frank on Ellen.

    Posted by johndenton46 at 01/11/2009 @ 11:17am

13. PRESS RELEASE January 7, 2009

    NEW BOOK DOCUMENTS THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION'S 269 WAR CRIMES

    With a Foreword by former Nuremberg prosecutor Benjamin B. Ferencz, the book George W. Bush, War Criminal? The Bush Administration's Liability for 269 War Crimes by Professor Michael Haas was released today by Greenwood Press. Further information is available at www.USwarcrimes.com

    Based on information supplied in autobiographical and press sources, the book matches events in Afghanistan, Guantánamo, Iraq, and various secret places of detention with provisions in the Geneva Conventions and other international agreements on war crimes. His compilation is the first to cite a comprehensive list of specific war crimes in four categories--illegality of the decision to go to war, misconduct during war, mistreatment of prisoners of war, and misgovernment in the American occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq.

    Haas accuses President Bush of conduct bordering on treason because he reenacted several complaints stated in the Declaration of Independence against England, ignored the Constitution and federal laws, trampled on the American tradition of developing international law to bring order to world politics, and in effect made a Faustian pact with Osama Bin Laden that the intelligence community blames for an increase in world terrorism. Osama Bin Laden remains alive, he reports, because Bush preferred to go after oil-rich Iraq rather than tracking down Al Qaeda leaders, whose uncaptured presence was useful to him in justifying a "war on terror" pursued on a military rather than a criminal basis without constitutional restraints.

    The worst war crime cited is the murder of at least 45 prisoners, some but not all by torture. Other heinous crimes include the brutal treatment of thou

    Posted by mikehaas at 01/11/2009 @ 6:57pm

14. "Please, please, dear savior, please consider investigating the Bush Adminstration for its war crimes, please".Posted by john lowell at 01/10/2009 @ 8:57pm

    More outgassing by the eater of kidney pie. They probably barred you from posting on 'Have Your Say'. Remember to take your meds.

    And then there's this...

    This being the beginning of the 21st century, with many conflicts and battles ahead, the citizens of the United States should decide whether to fight on as fascists or freemen. Posted by Tunnelrat at 01/10/2009 @ 12:25pm

    At first, this seems kind of extreme. But on second reading...I might have to agree. In fact, I DO agree.

    Posted by ficheye at 01/11/2009 @ 7:03pm

15. There's always the possibility that Obama is backing off until Bush is past his ability to pardon and self-pardon. So I'll complain softly until February 20 -- give the new guy a break .

    By Feb. 21, if Obama hasn't shown some respect for the law going forward, I'll join the "all hell breaks loose" protesters. Behind all this lies the largest problem we have to deal with (and no one seems to want to). That's the partnership of government with corporate money in America. Until we deal with that, we can never be sure the people we enthusiastically elect are the people we really want in the job.

    Posted by saetias at 01/12/2009 @ 1:14pm

16. The film that will put BUSH BEHIND BARS!!!

    VISIT: http://thetorturer.com

    • "Shocking, compelling… intense..." Thom Hartmann, Air America Radio

    • "My best character since ‘Uhura'" Nichelle Nichols

    • "By far the best film (at the AFM 2008)." Charlie Fagin – American Film Market Projectionist

    • "About time." An Army Wife

    Posted by grahamhgreen at 01/13/2009 @ 09:15am

17. The film that will put BUSH BEHIND BARS!!!

    VISIT: http://thetorturer.com

    • "Shocking, compelling… intense..." Thom Hartmann, Air America Radio

    • "My best character since ‘Uhura'" Nichelle Nichols

    • "By far the best film (at the AFM 2008)." Charlie Fagin – American Film Market Projectionist

    • "About time." An Army Wife

    Posted by grahamhgreen at 01/13/2009 @ 09:15am

18. Hopefully many will now accept Ralph Nader's dyer warning, made on Democracy Now's November 5th broadcast, seriously; "I congratulate Barrack Obama on his victory but, after all the money he took from Wallstreet and corporate lawyers, prepare to be disappointed"

    Posted by Oligarch_Slayer at 01/13/2009 @ 10:24am

19. I also noted that many in the media, perhaps Bush apologists all, are trying to characterize those of us asking for the even-handed application of the rule of law as "out for blood." This smacks of that condemnable extremist trait of demonization of the opposition and I sincerely hope that it will bring down the fiery sword of backlash upon their benighted heads. If our government won't bring these offenders to justice under our laws then perhaps the World Court should be invited to bring them before a war crimes tribunal.

    Posted by chasnat at 01/13/2009 @ 2:48pm