Neuroethics and Law:

An Italian court has cut the sentence given to a convicted murderer by a year because he has genes linked to violent behaviour — the first time that behavioural genetics has affected a sentence passed by a European court.

No Associated Press content was harmed in the writing of this post

Washington's view on ethics seems to be schizophrenic. Lawbreaking that is done for immediate personal gratification - primarily sexual or financial - is lavished with attention. Political opponents call for investigations and resignations, news outlets provide saturation coverage, vehement denunciations are issued and defenses raised, and generally speaking a high old time is had by all. Since Republicans like to appeal to voters as the party of values and morality there is usually a credible charge of hypocrisy coming from the left when it's a GOP perpetrator. But the capitol is entirely unequipped to grapple with illegality that happens for less obvious reasons, and elites tend to bend over backwards to rationalize it when they are forced to confront it.

[cross posted at NPR Check]

There are times when I read my transcription of a report on NPR and I ask myself, "Did they really say that?" This morning was one of those cases. Mary Louise Kelly was "reporting" on the CIA program that Panetta cancelled - and which was so secret that even the few members of Congress required by federal law (see short PDF file here) to be informed of such things - were told nothing.

Kelly describes the secrecy of the program and - referring to a New York Times report - notes that "the reason the CIA didn't brief this to Congress sooner was because Dick Cheney told them not to." Inskeep then asks Kelly a reasonable question: "Was anybody at the CIA actually legally required to tell Congress about this?" And this is where things get really strange. Kelly replies,

"It's actually not 100% clear. The law that governs this is called the National Security Act of 1947 and it's been amended many times since then, but the relevant portion is this: 'Congress must be notified about all significant intelligence activities; also' - and this is important - 'all significant, anticipated intelligence activities.' So the question becomes What is significant?, Who gets to decide?, and clearly in the case of this particular program, people came out with very different views about whether it met the standard."

Ah yes, like that wily word torture, significant is such a relative term - open to so many shades of interpretation. Hmmm....just what could significant mean? Funny thing is that Kelly opened the story noting that "what we do know is this: it was a covert program, clearly began back in 2001 after the 9/11 attacks. It continued in an on-again-off-again fashion up until last year." She also noted that "there is a lot of speculation that it had to do with a presidential authorization after 9/11 to capture or kill al-Qaeda leaders, so we're talking about using lethal force..." Ah yes, but whether a SEVEN YEAR covert program (and one that likely meant killing people) is significant is just so hard to really figure out.

No Associated Press content was harmed in the writing of this post

In the last two weeks we have seen multiple examples of what civil liberties advocates have been warning about over and over again. The infrastructure of the police state, put together behind the scenes and with secret rooms and fusion centers, was put on display in a number of different places.

The Talk Left Story by TChris comes hard on the heels of the scandal in the Texas Juvenile Corrections System.

Or at least, we hope so. It's interesting, but not surprising, they feel the need to apply this to embeds as well as contractors.

And for every story that has been deemed newsworthy, there are dozens that never see the spotlight. One US army officer recently told me of an incident he witnessed, where a contractor shot a young Iraqi who got too close to his vehicle while in line at the Green Zone entrance. The boy was waiting there to apply for a job. Not merely a tragedy, but one more nail in the coffin for any US effort at winning hearts and minds.

But when such incidents happen, officers like him have had no recourse other than to file reports that are supposed to be sent on either to the local government or the US Department of Justice, neither of which had traditionally done much. The local government is often failed or too weak to act - the very reason we are still in Iraq. And our Department of Justice has treated contractor crimes in a more Shakespearean than Hollywood way, as in Much Ado About Nothing. Last month, DOJ reported to Congress that it has sat on over 20 investigations of suspected contractor crimes without action in the last year.