Will the real White House torture policy please stand up?

President Barack Obama is feeling more political pressure to reverse Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel’s pronouncements and legally investigate the BushCo enablers of torture, if not the actual doers of the deed.

But, “legal sanctions”? Is this like Bill Clinton being disbarred from practicing law before the Supreme Court? Puhleeze.

At the same time, according to Talking Points Memo, the White House has apparently walked back Rahmbo’s original comments on the issue:

(A)dministration officials said Monday that Mr. Emanuel had meant the officials who ordered the policies carried out, not the lawyers who provided the legal rationale.

I say “apparently” in light of the legal sanctions idea also mentioned in the story.

Meanwhile, from Bizarro World, Uncle Fester, aka Darth Cheney, says that if Obama’s going to release some CIA torture memos, release them all.

Well, when an idiot goes “all in” at the poker table, take his money. Uncle Fester thinks, as he always has, that torture provides actionable intelligence and the rest of the memos will show that.

Releasing all memos, in context, with analysis showing just how little torture found? Done.

Meanwhile, Mike Madden offers his take on Obama’s spinning, and operatives’ greeting for him, at Langley.

And, in a related matter, Jake Tapper channels ABC reporters trying to nail down the Jell-O of White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs on the Big O’s love for state secrets in court.

Meanwhile, Gibbs et al in Team Obama treat the very word “torture” itself like it’s political dynamite.

TPM joining Obama castigation on ‘state secrets’

Glenn Greenwald’s got a great roundup of Obama imitating Bush on the issue of state secrets.

As part of the roundup, Glenn notes that Talking Points Memo is a great roundup of Obama imitating Bush picking up the drumbeat on this issue. With a side order of snark, no less. Zachary Roth:

(It) looks like a pretty broad consensus in opposition to the Obama administration's position. And it's the opposite of change we can believe in.

And, beyond that?

To top this with a Hypocrisy alert, Obama still has his proclaimed opposition to BushCo state secrets policy on his campaign website, as Jim White informs us.

Google eroding its privacy pledges further – avoid Google Docs

Turns out Google likes to do business with federal government snoopers.

The Internet search giant has sold data collection and storage hardware to the CIA, FBI and National Security Agency, who are banding together to create an internal government Intranet — sharing data on a system called Intellipedia.

Google supplies the software, hardware and tech support. The software and browsing giant is also licensing its mapping data to government agencies.

So, what else is Google selling?

Questioned by CNET earlier this year, both Google and Microsoft declined to say if they have provided their users private data to federal authorities under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act -- President Bush's warrantless wiretapping program. In general email and Internet data are not subject to the same privacy rules that wire, telephone and radio transmissions are.

Google told CNET: “As our privacy policy states, we comply with law enforcement requests made with proper service. We do not discuss specific law enforcement requests and generally do not share aggregate information about them. There are also some legal restrictions on what information we can share about law enforcement requests.”

And that is why big business as a whole, no matter the promises a bright new individual company makes, is no more to be trusted than big government.

Read here for more concerns about Google privacy.

This story doesn’t connect all the dots, but I will for you.

Do NOT use Google’s web-based Google Documents applications. You don’t know how much of the information Google will pass on (or already has) and to whom.

Va. Tech killer Cho

Does the background of Virginia Tech rampage killer Cho Seung-Hui suggest the federal government is now spying on our medical history? I hate to sound paranoid, but read the government’s own words:

From the ABC News story about Cho's background:

Some news accounts have suggested that Cho had a history of antidepressant use, but senior federal officials tell ABC News that they can find no record of such medication in the government's files. (Massive emphasis mine.)

What the hell?

Update: According to Kevin Drum of Washington Monthly, this may be the deal:

It's possible they're talking about MIB, which is an insurance company database that includes medical histories, including drug use. More than likely, the last time you signed up for healthcare insurance there was fine print in the contract stating that you agree to let your doctor submit information about you to MIB. Most people don't know this, but it's virtually impossible to get insurance without agreeing to this.

Alternatively, they may be talking about some other database. If so, I don't know what it is.