What's All the Fuss?

The United Nations' torture investigator [Manfred Nowak] criticized the White House Wednesday for defending the use of waterboarding and urged the U.S. to give up its defense of "unjustifiable" interrogation methods.

  Houston Chronicle

You know, we permit the UN to operate on our land. They better just watch it. We don’t need no steenkeen UN.

[C]ourt documents made public on Wednesday […] in the case of Zacarias Moussaoui appear to contradict a statement last December by Gen. Michael V. Hayden, the C.I.A. director, that when [interrogation] tapes were destroyed in November 2005 they had no relevance to any court proceeding, including Mr. Moussaoui’s criminal trial.

It was already known that the judge in the case, Leonie M. Brinkema, had not been told about the existence or destruction of the videos. But the newly disclosed court documents, which had been classified as secret, showed the judge had still been actively seeking information about Mr. Zubaydah’s interrogation as late as Nov. 29, 2005.

[...]

General Hayden said he understood that the tapes were destroyed “only after it was determined they were no longer of intelligence value and not relevant to any internal, legislative or judicial inquiries — including the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui.”

  NYT

So what’s the problem? When a court orders me to produce evidence, am I not allowed to determine which are relevant to the case and destroy the rest?

Geez, people, 9/11 changed everything.