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