Open Letter to Senators Feinstein and Schumer

Dear Senators Feinstein and Schumer,

While I must first convey my general support for your courageous past actions, both in committee hearings and in your roles in overseeing the actions of the Executive and its departments, I am forced to strenuously object to your announced decisions to support, however reluctantly, the nomination of Michael B Mukasey to the vacant post of Attorney General of the United States.

The position to which he has been nominated is critical to the preservation of our civil liberties, compliance of the Executive with Federal Laws and Treaties, and the observation of fundamental rights for our People, including the integrity of the ballot, equality and safety in the workplace, and the separation of religion from influence upon public policy and governmental actions.

Judge Mukasey, in his testimony before the Senate Judicial Committee seemed, despite his judicial experience and otherwise ample qualifications for the position of Attorney General, not to be able to clear one single simple hurdle, ... namely the public denunciation of torture as a permissible practice by our military and the Executive Branch vis a vis the Intelligence Agencies, whether applied to foreigners or American citizens designated by the Executive as enemies of the state. Torture, whether waterboarding or the many other flavors this Administration has employed, would not be tolerated as a means of interrogation in a domestic legal setting, ... except that it was, in the case of Jose Padilla. It would not be tolerated as punishment under the Constitution by any measure. Yet before being charged with crimes, before being arraigned or presented with legal infractions against which they are able to mount a defense, ... Judge Mukasey seems to indicate he would allow a suspect to be placed in a position in which he might believe he was at imminent risk of being drowned, ... because our President wants, perhaps even likes, that tool! That same tool has been repeatedly repudiated by professional intelligence officers as useless, ... for any victim of that sort of torture will say anything, do anything, ... to avoid being drowned, and to end the torture.

One must wonder how many suspects have ultimately been fatally drowned by these "non-lethal" interrogation techniques in the last 6 years, or more. That we do not know, and will never be told, is a clear sign that these techniques are considered "TORTURE", even by those who order their use,... even by this President, who claims no one is harmed, and that the next day, the victims of these techniques feel fine.

I do not know your personal or political connections to Judge Mukasey, Senators, and I must admit that in these perilous times for our Nation, I do not care. I do know that if you both vote Judge Mukasey out of Committee to the full Senate vote, you will have assured the continuation of criminal enterprise at the highest level of our government, and to the greatest extent ever seen in our Nation’s History to this time. Two Senators alone could have stood against it, ... But chose not to! That you will be blamed for becoming an accomplice to torture is a travesty, but deserved, and a black mark on your otherwise admirable public records.

Please, Senators Feinstein and Schumer, ... Take the more difficult but more ethical and American approach. Vote down Judge Mukasey in Committee, ... And stand up for America’s Judicial Integrity, before it is too late!