Here is the NYTimes reporting on the attacks:

Coordinated terror attacks struck the heart of Mumbai, India’s commercial capital, Wednesday night, killing dozens in machine-gun and grenade assaults on at least two five-star hotels, the city’s largest train station, a movie theater and a hospital. The Mumbai police said the attacks killed at least 75 people and wounded 240, according to preliminary reports. There were also reports that hostages had been taken in at least one of the hotels, with Americans and British nationals being singled out.

Here is Obama on 60 minutes giving the unequivocal answer we wanted to hear:

A response to this has been 'Bush said we do not torture.' My reply - Barack Obama is not George Bush. I could not ask for a better answer.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only

Most people accept the need to detain or quarantine individuals with highly communicable, potentially deadly diseases. Most people accept the need to detain mentally ill individuals who pose a serious risk to the safety of others. Too many people accept the need to detain sex offenders after they've finished their sentences for fear that they pose a substantial risk to reoffend if released.

The concept of preventive detention has prevailed at Guantanamo, albeit in unrecognizable form. When the diseased are no longer contagious, they are released from quarantine. If the mentally ill or "sexual predators" respond to treatment and are no longer dangerous, they're released. It's never been clear what condition, other than an unrecognizable victory in the war against terror, would trigger the release of the Guantanamo detainees. And unlike individuals detained pursuant to civil commitment laws, no Guantanamo detainee has had a hearing the meets even minimum standards of due process to establish a basis for his detention.

A New York Times article today examines whether the Obama administration might adopt a preventive detention law to continue holding Guantanamo detainees. [more ...]

Some Obama advisors are proposing a bipartisan commission to study the Bush administration's rendition and interrogation tactics. This balanced report by Mark Benjamin describes a tension between Obama advisors who advocate a criminal investigation and those who believe prompt criminal prosecutions would be ugly, ineffective, and problematic for Democrats who may have been briefed about the administration's actions.

Digby is skeptical that Obama will greenlight an investigatory commission, particularly if President Bush thwarts the possibility of criminal prosecutions by exercising his pardon power. According to Benjamin:

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The Justice Department diverted funds that Congress designated for terrorism prosecutions to the prosecution of other crimes, according to an audit (pdf) by Justice Department Inspector General Glenn Fine. From 2003 to 2007, Congress funded positions for 250 to 293 prosecutors to focus on terrorism. During that time, the Justice Department never assigned more than 204 prosecutors to terrorism cases. U.S. Attorneys used some of the funding to prosecute other crimes, including health care fraud and drug distribution. The audit also concluded that the U.S. Attorneys underutilized available resources.

While this AP story contends that the audit "raises questions about how prosecutors around the country allocate their time among top crime-fighting priorities," U.S. Attorneys aren't to blame for using their prosecutors where they're needed. No matter how much money Congress wants to allocate to terrorism prosecution, there just aren't many credible terrorist threats to prosecute. Prosecutors can convene grand jury investigations and prepare search warrant applications and otherwise assist federal agents with their investigations, but if those investigations go nowhere (as they so often have), the prosecutors are wasting their time and our money. U.S. Attorneys can assign prosecutors to chat with each other about the unproductive terrorism investigations they're leading, or they can assign those prosecutors to useful work.

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Change we can believe in?

As a candidate, Mr. Obama said the CIA's interrogation program should adhere to the same rules that apply to the military, which would prohibit the use of techniques such as waterboarding. He has also said the program should be investigated.

[But], [u]pon review, Mr. Obama may decide he wants to keep the road open in certain cases for the CIA to use techniques not approved by the military, but with much greater oversight.

You see the proposal is to have greater oversight over the torture. Change we can believe in!

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only

The outgoing British director of public prosecutions warned his country against using technologies that erode freedom to create a "security state" in the name of combating terrorism.

Proposals to extend the storage and use of communications data, such as e-mails and mobile phone records, for security purposes are proving highly contentious. The government also faces continued opposition to its proposals on identity cards.

Sir Ken Macdonald also assured his fellow citizens that "special courts, vetted judges and all the other paraphernalia of paranoia" are an unnecessary response to terrorism. Successful terrorism prosecutions prove that the existing legal system capably addresses crimes of terror without sacrificing civil liberties.

As Big Tent Demcocrat noted earlier today, uneasy about the blessing it received from the Justice Department to engage in torture, senior CIA officials wanted express White House approval as political cover for its aggressive (and illegal) interrogation techniques.

The repeated requests for a paper trail reflected growing worries within the CIA that the administration might later distance itself from key decisions about the handling of captured al-Qaeda leaders, former intelligence officials said.

The Washington Post reports that the administration finally issued memoranda in 2003 and 2004 "that explicitly endorsed the agency's use of interrogation techniques such as waterboarding against al-Qaeda suspects." The classified memos have not been previously disclosed.

In the Jack Ryan (played by Harrison Ford) movie "Clear And Present Danger," the CIA Director of Operations Robert Ritter pulls out a letter of authorization from the White House for an illegal action and exclaims to Jack Ryan:

Ritter: I have an *autographed get-out-of-jail-free card*! "The President of the United States authorizes Deputy Director of the CIA Robert Ritter to conduct 'Operation Reciprocity' including all necessary funding and support. This action is deemed important to the national security of the United States etcetera, etcetera, etcetera." You don't have one of these, do you Jack?

George Tenet asked for and got a get out of jail free card from the Bush White House on torture:

On the 7th Anniversary of the heinous attack on the United States by Osama bin Laden and Al Qaida, what is the legacy of that awful, fateful day? It seems clear - Osama bin Laden and Al Qaida succeeded in severely weakening the United States due to the incompetence of the Bush Administration and Republicans like John McCain. Instead of fighting the War On Terror to its conclusion in Afghanistan, the Bush Administration, at the strong urging of John McCain, embarked in the strategically disastrous Iraq Debacle, diverting important resources from the War on Terror to fight a war of choice, and a very poor choice it was.

In 2002, Barack Obama said:

President Bush can't (and won't) do much about the economy before November. Is he trying to change the national conversation?

Two helicopters carrying American-led forces landed in a Pakistani village in South Waziristan near the border with Afghanistan in the early hours of Wednesday morning and the soldiers opened fire on villagers, killing seven people, according to a spokesman for the Pakistani military.

There are legitimate reasons to pursue Al Qaeda and the Taliban. Perhaps NATO and the American military had strong intelligence to justify this incursion. Perhaps not. If it is true that soldiers "opened fire on villagers," however, there had better be strong evidence that they knew they weren't shooting innocent people. And there had better be strong evidence that this wasn't a ploy to focus voters on national security issues, the one area in which John McCain is perceived to have some strength (despite his questionable knowledge of modern geography), in order to influence the election.

Like many other people who have no connection to terrorism, Erich Scherfen's name appears on Homeland Security's secret terrorist watch list. Scherfen is a pilot and a Gulf War veteran who converted to Islam in 1994. His employer, Colgan Air Inc. (which operates Continental Connection, United Express and US Airways Express), suspended him and threatened to terminate him after the Transportation Security Administration advised Colgan that Scherfen was a "positive match."

Scherfen has no criminal record and no affiliation with any terrorist organization. So why was he being "watched" for terrorist activities? Scherfen believes his conversion to Islam and his marriage to a Pakistani who sells Islamic books was all the evidence Homeland Security needed to view him with suspicion.

Scherfen sued the government last month for violating his right to religious freedom. The response was good news for Scherfen: Colgan has withdrawn its attempt to terminate his employment and is reinstating him as a pilot. Scherfen is nonetheless pressing forward with his lawsuit. He deserves to win it.