Obama Creates New Unit to Handle High-Level Interrogations

Obama Creates New Unit to Handle High-Level Interrogations

Attorney General Eric Holder will be making the decisions on any prosecutions related to past interrogation practices.

By Stephen Kaufman
Staff Writer

Washington — In an effort to gain more intelligence through “scientifically proven means,” the Obama administration has created a “high-value interrogation group” with responsibility for interrogating key detainees who are believed to have useful information on violent extremist groups, a White House spokesman says.

White House deputy press secretary Bill Burton told reporters August 24 that the new group, which President Obama created after receiving the consensus recommendation of an interagency task force, will be housed at the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

“It will bring together all the different elements of the intelligence community to get the best intelligence possible based on scientifically proven methods and consistent with the Army Field Manual,” Burton said in Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, where the president is vacationing.

“This is a way that the intelligence community can best operate, especially in these high-value instances,” he said.

In his January 20 inaugural address, President Obama said his administration “reject[s] as false the choice between our safety and our ideals,” and soon afterward he announced plans to close the Guantánamo Bay detention center in Cuba, abolish harsh interrogation methods by intelligence officers, halt military tribunals for suspected terrorists at Guantánamo for at least 120 days and end secret prisons maintained abroad by the intelligence community.

The president also signed an executive order that abolishes any secret prisons abroad that have been used by the U.S. intelligence community for dealing with terrorists, and ordered that any interrogations carried out be under the terms of the U.S. Army Field Manual on interrogations, which is consistent with U.S. treaties and the humane treatment of prisoners under international laws and obligations.

The 2006 Army manual the president cited in his executive order — Field Manual 2–22.3, “Human Intelligence Collector Operations” — complies with the Geneva Conventions and all its protocols, and explicitly prohibits torture and cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment. It also is in compliance with the U.S. Detainee Treatment Act of 2005.

The field manual outlines 19 legal interrogation techniques and forbids nine others.

Deputy press secretary Burton said President Obama signed an executive order to establish an interagency interrogation task force to “find new methods by which we can get more intelligence by scientifically proven means.”

The high-value interrogation group will house people from different elements of the intelligence community, including the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). “It houses all these different elements under one group where they can best perform their duties,” Burton said.

The president “has full confidence in this plan, and he's going to continue to support it going forward,” he said.

According to an August 24 article in the Washington Post newspaper, the White House will have direct oversight over the new interrogation unit through the National Security Council. The Post also reported that the unit will be made up of experts from several intelligence and law enforcement agencies.

Asked about potential investigations and prosecutions of alleged abuses in the past by U.S. interrogators, Burton said President Obama believes those decisions should be made by Attorney General Eric Holder.

“When the president appointed Attorney General Holder to the job, he said specifically that he wanted him to be independent and he wanted the Department of Justice to be an independent entity. He has great faith in Attorney General Holder, but he ultimately is going to make the decisions,” he said.

The president has also said Americans “should be looking forward, not backward,” Burton said, and Obama agrees with the attorney general that “anyone who conducted actions that had been sanctioned should not be prosecuted.”

According to news reports, Holder decided August 24 to appoint a prosecutor to probe nearly a dozen cases in which CIA interrogators and contractors are accused of violating anti-torture laws and other statutes in their interrogations of suspects linked to violent extremist groups.

馬蟥腦殘遊記第四回

我有問哈佛大學精神分析學博士，分析夏先生的心理狀態，他心理想「此處不留爺，自有留爺處，處處不留爺，我去投八路（指解放軍）」

I had eaten Father's day big feast in Howards hotel . oh my God,i forget my job is the The Chief Secretary of Exective Yuan in馬蟥goverment. I eat Father's day big feast in Howards hotel now. oh,my God.Mr.Ma is finding much "余文".And delay to September.

馬蟥「腦殘遊記」第三回

我覺得馬蟥已經被嚇傻了，就像蔡依玲說的老虎、老鼠傻傻的分不清楚，「老美、老共，也分不清楚」，「災胞、呆胞也分不清楚」啦

馬蟥心理想，我是堂堂哈佛大學法學博士，小蔣首席英文秘書，大學教授，長期擔任國家重要職務，是電視看我在辦事，不是我看電視辦事，再說，我現在都不看電視了，因為他們都是深綠的，只有大愛台比較客觀，從來沒有罵過我

the money in Taiwan is going to China for a long time.

馬蝗「腦殘遊記」第二回，拒絕國際援助的秘辛

馬蝗滿腦子要當「台灣區」區長，8月8日他打電話給老大「胡先生」請示，老大生氣了，說「你只要讓美、日軍隊來台，我就被迫要啟動一反分裂國家法」，解放軍也要開到台灣，所以馬蝗嚇而臉色發白，要「斷交部」婉拒國際援助。

Taiwan President Is Target of Anger After Typhoon

Taiwan President Is Target of Anger After Typhoon
By ANDREW JACOBS
Published: August 12, 2009
CHISHAN, Taiwan — If President Ma Ying-jeou thought he might be treated presidentially on Wednesday as he toured a center for survivors of last weekend’s typhoon, he was mistaken.
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Reuters
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Kaohsiung County was hit hard by floods and landslides.
The moment he stepped onto a soccer field that had been doubling as a landing pad for rescue helicopters, Mr. Ma was besieged by angry villagers who accused his administration of moving too slowly to help those still trapped in the mountains near here. As they hurled insults at him, the skies opened and Mr. Ma quickly became drenched to the skin, all of it captured live on television.
“Save us, people are dying,” the villagers yelled while holding aloft handmade banners that read “The government doesn’t value human life.”
Chen Tai-sheng, who trudged out from his mud-soaked village two days ago, said the president should spend less time touring the country and more time orchestrating rescue efforts. “This is a war, not a political campaign,” Mr. Chen yelled.
Typhoon Morakot, one of the worst natural disasters to hit Taiwan in 50 years, is also turning into an unpleasant political experience for Mr. Ma, the former mayor of Taipei who was elected last year by a respectable margin but whose popularity has been steadily dropping.
The storm, which killed at least 67 people across Taiwan and left scores missing, has turned into the kind of test that can make or break a political career, or in the case of Mr. Ma, provide fodder to the opposition — and irresistible images to a voracious press.
On Monday, during an earlier tour of his waterlogged nation, Mr. Ma was seen promising a bulldozer to a man who was searching for the body of his father. Two days later, after failing to persuade officials to make good on the pledge, the man, Lee Yu-ying, was forced to rent his own equipment to dig out his father’s mud-encased car.
“What kind of help was that?” Mr. Lee asked TVBS, a cable news channel.
As with most natural disasters, there has been plenty of blame to go around. When the extent of the storm’s wrath became clear on Sunday, Mr. Ma criticized the country’s water resources agency for ineptitude and accused the national weather bureau of failing to predict rainfall that soaked some parts of the country for three or more days.
On Tuesday, the president of the government’s investigative arm, the Control Yuan, said he would look into whether agencies or officials had a role in the extent of devastation.
“If no corrective measures are taken we will impeach them, impeach them and impeach them until they do what we want them to do,” said Wang Chien-hsuan, the agency’s president.
Most everyone here has been stunned by the ferocity of the typhoon, which dumped more than 80 inches of water in some places, swelling rivers that washed away bridges and spurring landslides that buried entire villages.
A weekend of typhoons claimed two dozen lives in eastern China, Japan and the Philippines, but Morakot had its deadliest impact on the isolated hamlets that dot the mountains of southern Taiwan.
Rescue officials, cut off from dozens of communities, have been unable to estimate the number of the dead or missing. Residents who have made it out alive, however, suggest that the figures could be well into the hundreds.
Li Jing-rong, 50, a farmer from Hsiao-lin, a village of 1,300 set deep within the craggy folds of Kaohsiung County, said the most densely settled part of town was erased by a wall of rock and dirt that narrowly missed his home.
“No one could have survived that,” he said.
He said that at least 600 people, including his parents, were swept away around 6 a.m. on Sunday. The survivors from his end of the village, about 40 people, scurried to an open area and then spent three days waiting in the rain before helicopters arrived on Tuesday. He said a separate group of 30, including his brother, were waiting for help in another valley.
“I wish the government would work faster because they have nothing to eat,” he said after confronting the president.
Throughout the day, as sunshine alternated with soaking downpours, helicopters thundered in and out of Chishan Middle School’s sports field. During the morning, the helicopters picked up supplies. By afternoon, they were returning with muddied and barefoot villagers from a town called Minzu.
They were for the most part the dark-skinned citizens of Taiwan known as aborigines, the indigenous mountain-dwellers who have sometimes had an uneasy relationship with the island’s more recently arrived Han Chinese ruling class.
As the survivors scurried across the grass, rotors whirling above their heads, a crowd of people, some weeping and wailing, surged forward to meet loved ones, or to ask about those still unaccounted for. “Have you seen my mother?” one woman screamed again and again. No one responded.
The injured were bundled into ambulances; taxis and minivans took away everyone else. During the quiet between the arrival and departure of each helicopter, people worried aloud about the unrelenting rain or complained that too many boxes of instant noodles were being delivered to those huddling outdoors without access to water or stoves.
Aijo Wu, a 23-year-old law student who has had no word from her extended family in the village of Taoyuan, was the last person to talk to Mr. Ma before his security detail whisked him away. She begged him to speed up the pace of the rescue efforts, but after he left she was less timid in her comments to reporters.
“If there are 20,000 people stranded but the army is only using 30 of their helicopters, a lot of people are going to die,” she said. “I’m angry that the president won’t ask the outside world for help.”
Kuanying Yu contributed research.

「刑事妥速審判法草案」

1. 遲來的正義不是正義！司法院昨天推出「刑事妥速審判法草案」，明定羈押被告案件，應以優先且特別迅速的方式連續開庭審理，開庭間隔日數不得逾七或十四日，且一審起審判逾六年，經最高法院發回更審三次以上仍無罪者，檢方不得上訴，盼藉此解決案件纏訟多年仍懸而未決，並兼顧司法效率和品質。
2. 訂定不得上訴門檻 解決懸案：未來速審法通過實施後，久懸未決、延宕廿二年的陸正遭撕票案，原則上不得再上訴最高法院，即認定案件確定；歷經十八年的汐止吳銘漢夫婦被殺案（或稱蘇建和案）也有機會儘早審結；至於被告在押案件，如前總統陳水扁所涉國務機要費案，未來法院不得超過七天或十四天不開庭審理。
3. 陸正、蘇建和等案 可望審結：據司法院統計，目前逾十年未結案高達一百卅八件，逾十二年未結六十七件，逾十五年未結十件，其中，一銀押匯案已纏訟達卅年。司法院所擬的草案共有十六條條文，強調兼顧被告人權，其中特別提到羈押對被告身心及名譽影響甚大，長期羈押對被告工作、家庭及生活均有不利影響，且影響自由蒐集有利證據以從事訴訟準備行為，同時援引德國七天開庭一次作法，盼符合國際人權標準；不過，考量我國法官案件負荷重及法庭數量不足等情形，司院也另規劃十四天開庭一次的方案供外界討論。
   此外，該草案對於案件審理亦訂出「合理期間」審結觀點，並援引歐洲人權作法，從一審起逾十年或十二年者，若透過檢方窮極強大公權力仍無法將被告定罪，亦未能判決確定者，法院得駁回檢方上訴。
4. 該草案開宗明義提到，基於憲法保障人民有受公正、合法及迅速審判的權利及各國人權法案將「適時審判」為依歸，對於法院受理案件，應依法詳查，不得有侵害當事人權益，並應確保程序之公正適切。
5. 草案中亦提及，法院依法行準備程序，應儘速集中審理，以利案件妥速審結，且法院向其他機關調取文件或鑑定者，相關機關亦應儘速配合。司法院將自十七日起舉辦六場公聽會，法務部政務次長黃世銘昨天表示，基本上檢方會配合司法院制訂的速審法草案。
6. 針對司法院推動妥速審判，各界反應不一。有些法官認為應有配套措施，民間司改會常務執行委員高涌誠律師表示，要求妥速審判，是人民的基本人權，司法院改革的大方向是正確的，但更重要的是提升法官素質，落實無罪推定原則，甚至推動國民參審制，以提供人民妥適迅速的審判。
7. 多位資深法官、庭長表示，沒有法官會故意拖延案件不結，「速審法草案」規定，一定時間不能判決確定，就裁定駁回起訴；駁回起訴等同於無罪，豈非案件拖久了，被告就可獲利？若無相關配套，恐怕易生弊端。高涌誠說，司法院推動草擬刑事妥速審判法，方向固然正確，但人民對法官的信賴不足，是否有法官會在時限壓力下，草率處理案件，把無罪判為有罪，令人擔心。
8. 一名不具名的資深檢察官也認為，要解決纏訟積案的問題，還是要回歸全國司法改革會議的結論，就是刑事的二審應改為法律審，例外允許事實審。因為事實只有一個，大部分國家的刑事訴訟制度，也都只有一個事實審，不像我們一、二審都調查事實，最高法院又常常以有事實未調查的理由發回更審，導致訴訟延宕，遲遲無法定讞。部分二審法院法官指出，從審判實務來說，案件經年未結，經常是最高法院一再發回更審所致。

莫拉克+民進黨

1. (2009.08.11 更新)各地物資中心都需要志工加入，請願意加入志工的朋友們，一起伸出援手，願意加入者請與以下物資中心聯繫前往協助，謝謝！
2. 高雄市政府協助統籌發放莫拉克颱風救災物資，獲民眾溫暖響應，現有空間已無法容納救災物資，本(11)日起，請改送至龍華國小。(莫拉克颱風重創南台灣，高雄市政府協助統籌救災物資，感謝各界溫暖響應，請民眾暫時勿再提供熟食，謝謝配合！)

中共對臺經濟戰與兩岸統一

1. 壹、中共對臺經濟戰略及戰術

• Economic warfare is as old as traditional warfare and, throughout time, economic wars have been waged to secure financial gains. Economic wars are marked by continuity and they are known in times of peace as well as during war. Chief among the economic wars witnessed between Europe and the United States was the disagreement over the Siberia gas pipeline. There has also been an economic war between the United States on one hand and China and Japan on the other.There are various weapons employed in economic warfare, including sanctions, boycotts, customs barriers, monopolies, mergers and marine piracy. Economic defence means confronting any external threat, while economic offensives to destroy and corrupt economies include dumping, the manipulation of drug wars and counterfeit money, and money laundering.Economic wars, like traditional ones, are based on surprise, deceit and espionage in order to acquire information about the enemy, and involve the fast transfer of information. In the 21st century, economic wars are taking on a new form, depending more on advanced technologies and modern communication. With military conflict an unrealistic option, espionage will centre more on the economic power of the state and the economic activities of large companies and institutions. Experts anticipate that the future of nations in the coming decade will depend on the intelligence of their spies and the ability of their businesspeople to master the art of espionage in the world of economics.Due to the wide spread of technology, computers are used as an effective tool; destructive programs and viruses are used to destroy the enemy and intelligence bodies manipulate stock markets to destroy the economies of their targets. Resources indicate that 95 per cent of large US companies use economic intelligence and that the United States has started to spy on all international communications in an attempt to serve its economic interests and those of its allies.

1. 現階段中共對臺經濟之控制力
2. 臺灣政府對中共經貿開放政策評析
3. 臺灣抵禦中共經濟戰之能力評估
4. 國際社會如何因應兩岸經貿戰
5. 臺灣落入中共手中後的亞洲情勢
6. 結論
   

台灣壽險業的問題

1. 中央銀行低利率政策「利差損」由於臺灣過去高利率時期，各壽險公司賣了很多高分紅利率保單，惟自民國80年代末期起迄今，市場利率逐漸降低，97年底已降到2.69%，較88年的5.22%下降了72.14%，顯示而保險公司「利差損」的問題愈來愈嚴重。
2. 國際金融海嘯中央銀行總裁彭准南於98年6月7日接受國立臺北大學榮譽法學博士學位致詞時指稱「面臨嚴峻的經濟衰退，央行積極採行因應措施。為激勵內需，自去（97）年9月26日起，7度調降各項貼放利率，累積降幅達2.375個百分點，以減輕個人及企業的資金成本，並促進民間消費與投資意願…但基於總體經濟利益的考量，央行仍不得不調降利率。」，由此可知，在景氣尚未完全復甦之際，中央銀行採行寬鬆的貨幣政策短期內不會改變，上述「利差損」問題更加嚴峻。此外，保險公司從事海外投資，導致嚴重虧損，如97年9月15日美國雷曼兄弟控股公司(Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.)向美國法院聲請破產，行政院金融監督管理委員會（以下簡稱「金管會」）隨即針對壽險業投資型保險商品連結之結構型債券是否涉及雷曼兄弟之情形進行調查，確認壽險業投資型保險商品並無連結雷曼兄弟發行或保證之結構型債券，惟仍不免引發市場恐慌，同時間國內保險公司龍頭國泰人壽公告其雷曼兄弟所發行之結構債投資部位達0.87億台幣，其他保險公司亦相同情形。
3. 國際會計準則愈發嚴謹為加速金融市場國際化，金管會於97年5月中決定與國際會計準則接軌，即所有金融機構通用國際會計準則，在保險業方面分2階段實施，在2011年先實施第40號公報，也就是「保險合約會計」之第一階段，僅牽涉到保險商品重新分類及資訊揭露，嗣後再擇期「會計第二階段」（IFRS4 Phase2），要求保險公司保單必須以「公平價值評價」，如前述，臺灣過去賣了太多高利保單，勢必得增提大筆準備金，經初步評估，如果臺灣實施保險業合約會計第二階段，保險業必須提列的準備金將比現在多出7倍，造成保險業沈重財務壓力。
4. 美國公債價格不斷滑落，壽險業增資壓力大近來美國財政部增發公債，使美國政府債券價格持續下跌，國際金融市場更瀰漫美債可能遭降等的疑慮，而國內保險公司大多擁有龐大美國政府公債部位，而依會計準則，該些國外投資列資產項下之「備供出售」科目，如果美債價格下跌，必須提列「評價損失」，此一損失則為股東權益的減項，如果美債價格大幅下跌，將使股東權益忽遽減少，依保險法規定壽險必須增資。金融業購買最多美國政府公債的就是壽險業，依據保險事業發展中心的資料，98年2月底壽險業國外投資共有2.54兆元，占可運用資金的31.18%。壽險業者估計，業界購買美國公債，以及房地美、房利美、奇利美三個準政府機構所發行或保證的債券，約達國外投資額度近五成，至少有1.2兆元。

台灣電子產業vs大陸電機電子業

台灣擁有世界一流的電機電子產品製造業，許多產品世界第一，由此產生了一些飽和現象，要形成新的增長點，需要和大陸合作。電機電子是台灣最重要的產業，2007年上下游產值達2178億美元，約佔台灣製造業產值的50.9%。其中資通訊產品中有13項世界第一，如主機板世界佔有率高達97.2%。一些產品增長卻出現了問題，去年如半導體、照明等等增長在5%-10%之間，這是台灣地區近十年來電子產品出現個位數的增長，以前都是兩位數的增長，這給我們敲響了警鐘。台灣電子產業也要轉型升級，需要和大陸合作，尋找新的機遇。
但自馬總統上台後，臺商已經走出加工製造階段，樹立起了創新與研發的形象，目前台灣的電子產品約百分之八十是在長江流域生產加工製造的；而浙江的電機電子產業發展仍處於起步階段，相當於台灣上世紀七十年代的發展水準。雙方在資源與市場存在很強的互補性，通過研發與製造分工的模式，浙、臺兩地的電子產業將得以實現互利雙贏。但是大陸地區仍然面臨整體電子產業環境支援系統薄弱，缺乏經驗性技術人才與關鍵項目帶頭人等諸多問題，加強與臺商的對接和合作，也將是浙江電子行業"克服成長的煩惱"，走出困境、走向全球化的有利選擇，大陸地區的機電電子生產商還處於簡單的複製階段，產品的設計創新能力還很低，而台灣已經擁有比較強大的實力，可以和大陸地區優勢互補，共同合作。
近來大陸將推五大措施協助台資企業抗擊金融風暴，其中包括參與大陸基建工程、向中西部轉移及提供更便利的融資管道等具體措施，分別如下：
第一，拓寬台商投資領域，提高兩岸合作層次，協助台資企業參與大陸基礎設施和重大工程建設。
第二，促進兩岸加強第三產業的合作，推動台資企業投資現代服務業。
第三，鼓勵台商投資大陸資源開發、節能環保產業，開展兩岸節能和環保技術交流。
第四，支援和協助台資企業自主創新，實現轉型升級，加快向大陸中西部的產業轉移步伐。
第五，加快推進兩岸金融合作，在合理增加信貸規模的政策調整中，綜合考慮中小台資企業資金需求，為台資企業提供融資便利。