There’s another story today that I hope will result again in Obama’s taking the DOJ to task.  Or perhaps this time it will be Attorney General Holder who offers a correction.  Whoever might address it, this is a matter screaming to be addressed.

Bloomberg.com ran this story yesterday about the Obama DOJ defending John Yoo, author of memo that gave a green light to the Bush administration to torture people.  The situation arose in a federal case in U.S. District Court in California, in which Jose Padilla, held as an enemy combatant for three years, has named Yoo in a lawsuit for his role in creating “a system of torture.”

Obama has taken decisive action to reverse Bush era practices and policies related to the torture and other mistreatment of people held by the U.S.  Just a few days ago his administration released a new round of memos about Yoo’s actions, none of them favorable to Yoo.  So it’s easy to understand why U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White was caught by surprise when the DOJ attorney in the Padilla suit, Mary Mason, said that the allegations against Yoo don’t meet the legal threshhold for holding a federal employee personally liable.

An update to the story includes a communication from Matt Miller, a DOJ spokesperson, who first affirmed that the Obama DOJ disagrees with the Bush DOJ on how to handle national security issues.  But then…

BUT THEN…!!!

Miller’s email to thte AP continued: “Nevertheless, the department generally defends employees and former employees in lawsuits that are filed in connection to their official duties.”

What a gob-smacking moment.

This is another case of the Powers-That-Be resorting to every measure available to them to protect someone in a public service position similar to their own, no matter how serious, damaging, unethical (etc., etc.) that person’s actions were.  And this is the point at which bureaucrats, in bureaucracies large and small, thumb their noses at any individual or even group of mere citizens who seek justice when purported public servants have aborted justice.  The force of government power remains first and foremost to protect those in the government, rather than those whom they are charged with serving.

This is the level at which the change has to happen to become real.

I get why Mason and Miller said what they said.  The general argument is that if they don’t protect people who have served in those roles in the past, then what’s to prevent someone from coming after them in the near future?  And I suppose there’s little to prevent someone from coming after them, but there damn sure is something that will lessen the likelihood such an action will do great damage: lawful, ethical performance of one’s job, which one thoroughly documents.

Until people at the DOJ are so committed to justice as to be willing to face the prospect of having their own feet held to the fire in the U.S. justice system, they may as well rename the DOJ to the Department of However Much Justice Is Possible After We’ve Covered Our Own Backsides.

In the meantime, all us mere citizens may as well go suck rotten eggs.

Peace and justice.

Deborah Alicen

The worst that I’m referring to in this post is sexual assault and abuse. I’ll not get into ranking “worsts;” death, and other forms of torture (because sexual assault and abuse are forms of torture) also rank as “worst.” But the stories I’ll touch on in this post are:

• The Oklahoma Sheriff case;
• The Texas underage polygamy story
• Pope Benedict’s apology to survivors of clergy sexual abuse
• KBR rape cases

Representative of governmental bureaucracy in this line-up, the Oklahoma Sheriff case that broke into the news yesterday has left some Oklahomans stunned, and no doubt at least a few in disbelief, even though that’s not included in the AP news story. I include it because there are always people who cannot bring themselves, or will not allow themselves, to believe stories of sexual exploitation, especially when the perpetrators are people they love or respect either from personal knowledge of them or by virtue of their position–e.g. sheriff. While wanting to be careful not to malign a man who is innocent until proven guilty, the possibility, probability, likelihood, etc. of the allegations being true speaks volumes about the kinds of structural flaws that can exist in bureaucracies that exist ostensibly to protect people.

A similar situation exists in the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints‘ community in Texas, in which underage girls have been “spiritually married” to older men with multiple wives. Spiritual communities, faith communities, with few exceptions claim to be about the best and highest in terms of morals and values, which, as with sheriffs and other law enforcement personnel, are properly involved in caring for and protecting those who are weak and vulnerable. In other words, both sheriffs and religious stand as fiduciaries, and when they exploit rather than protect, their actions constitute a betrayal of their relationship with their victims.

The one case in this group that’s somewhat different is that of KBR, the federal contractor in Iraq against whom there are now a dozen or so women employees who have reported being raped by male KBR employees. There’s not quite the same sort of fiduciary relationship between perpetrators and victims in the KBR case as in the FLDS and Oklahoma sheriff cases, though the company certainly had a fiduciary responsibility to its female employees, and beyond the company, the Department of Justice has responsibilities to the victims which it has abandoned. The KBR case, then involves both corporate and governmental bureaucracies that have circled the wagons and adopted postures designed to protect the rapists rather than the people for whom they are responsible.

The history of Roman Catholic clergy sexual abuse in the U.S. shows the same pattern: church hierarchy that long ignored the needs of victims and made it possible for abusive clergy to victimize ever more children by moving them from place to place and trying to protect the church-as-organization, rather than protect the church-as-its-people. The fiduciary responsibilities were, of course, the same or similar to those that apply to the Oklahoma and FLDS cases.

In all cases, there are features in the structure of the bureaucracies that have allowed this turning of responsibility inside-out, such that the government, business or organization operates 180° out of phase with its stated principles and mission. The question becomes: how can bureaucracies be structured differently to prevent that 180° shift? What transparency and accountability measures can be incorporated in bureaucracies that will deter or prevent such phase shifts? There are certainly effective measures available, and I’ll address those in a separate post. For now I want just to acknowledge the similarities across abusive bureaucracies, regardless of their being located in government, corporations, or organizations.

Something else to acknowledge, too, to close out this post: Pope Benedict XVI‘s apology to survivors of clergy sexual abuse. Whatever my disagreements with him–and they are many–he has done an important and wonderful thing through his public apologies, but most especially through his meeting one-on-one with a number of survivors. To literally reach out to them, to look them in the eye, and to let himself be touched directly by them is a great, compassionate act of healing. Having worked with victims and survivors of sexual abuse and assault for twenty years as a counselor and psychologist, I can say unequivocally that what Pope Benedict did is what most victim/survivors yearn for: someone who will take responsibility, feel some of the pain, and apologize.

Would that all powers-that-be, in all bureaucracies where one of their own has done wrong, would do likewise.

Peace.

Deborah Alicen

Changes in the Civil Rights Division – MSNBC Live with Dan Abrams- msnbc.com
Just three days after our series Bush League Justice exposed the dismal record of this Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, in particular the voting rights section, now we learn that the head of that division, John Tanner, is “resigning” effective immediately. For weeks, civil rights advocates had been calling for his ouster. We’re glad to see that somebody is finally listening, but this is just the first step.

The post is a heartening read, an example of perseverance succeeding.  I will disagree with Abrams on one minor point, however: his saying that “this is just the first step.”

The first step was much more likely taken back in 2001 when Tanner was awarded the plum of the Civil Rights Division.  There had to be one or more career folks in the division back then who were galled by what they saw, what they were made to swallow, and who lost many nights’ sleep trying to figure out ways to make it stop.  Someday, when the whole story gets told, I hope those people and their steps will be recorded as the initial, crucial stage in bringing about transparency, accountablity, and justice.

Peace

Deborah Alicen