US axes website for reporting human rights abuses by US-armed foreign forces (bbc.com)

Because the US government is no longer even pretending to care about human rights.

Not that I agree with this decision, but is there any evidence that these reports yielded any consequences? Or rather, was it one of those, "After conducting an internal investigation, we have determined we did nothing wrong" kind of things?

> Tim Rieser, former senior aide to Senator Leahy who wrote the 2011 amendment mandating information gathering, told the BBC the gateway's removal meant the State Department was "clearly ignoring the law".

We're in a really bad place... with a servile congress, it turns out there aren't really any laws constraining the executive branch. When everything relies on "independent IGs" for law enforcement inside executive branch departments, and the President can fire them all without consequence or oversight, then it turns out there is no law.

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The whole WikiLeaks affair about "Collateral Murder" was also about hiding U.S. war crimes. US army goes a long way to hide that stuff...

It was followed by a decade of ridiculous but very effective character assassination of Assange, who is hated based on how dislikable he appears.

I recommend youngsters and "zoomers" read about it, because the recent past is often the most forgotten: https://collateralmurder.wikileaks.org/

While there may well not have been ethical intentions behind this removal (who knows), I think reporting to the press directly is probably better than reporting it to a government, so as to avoid giving the government a chance to cover things up.

Not that I know, but I could imagine that a public/anonymous form on the web (if that's what it was) was receiving 99.8% bot/garbage/spam/nuisance reports and they took it down for that reason. Though nothing in the article gives that as a reason, and quotes only the rather vague statement that "the US State Department insisted it was continuing to receive reports regarding gross violations of human rights and was engaging with "credible organisations" on a full spectrum of human rights concerns."

the Mitchell and Webb "are we the baddies" sketch certainly comes to mind here

Is this the greatness I was promised?

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Lots of people seem to think Trump is some sort of king or going outside the law. Fact is he was democratically elected and working within the system of checks and balances established by our founders. Congress can stop him from doing things but the democratically elected congress allows him to continue. So they agree with his actions and are doing their job. Checked and balanced.

The courts can stop him and indeed have in several cases. Often times higher courts over rule those lower ones but not always. Majority of the time they eventually end up siding with the executive branch though. So courts are doing their job. Checked and balanced.

Every check and balance is working its just not making decisions the left agrees with. This is indeed what democracy looks like though.

Mid terms are coming up and the people will once again have a chance to voice their opinion.

Note: I have been hit by the HN "posting to fast" limit so I can't respond.

This seems like a bad decision to me. Not only does it seem not to be in the spirit of the law (you can still report but not as easily now) but it's not clear why they shut it down at all. Cost? Inefficiency? Just wasn't getting used much? They have a better solution?

On the other hand, the US seems so partisan now that had the current administration told the world they were taking huma' rights abuse reporting seriously by creating a web form, some people would probably be criticized for that, too.

I mean, the minister of war was clear where he stand on these. They are manly acts manly man armies commit.

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It sounds like this was mainly being used to report abuses by US allies, ie “US armed IDF forces” according to the article. Obviously there is something more to this than the headline and tone of the piece indicate. For one thing, the law written by Leahy was passed in 2011, but this website went online in 2022, so how can removing the site make it impossible to abide by the law? What was going on between 2011 and 2022 than is different from now?

I’m concerned about human rights, but I’m equally concerned about yellow journalism or coordinated media bias.

From a practical standpoint, this is why Wikileaks matters. Rather than count on the State department to serve that role, we should count on independent journalists like Glen Greenwald and outlets like Wikileaks who are reliably independent.

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It's hard to not laugh at this. Like it's so fucking stupid and up to par with what's going on.

Just making sure there is less noise when they start (already started) using U.S.-armed U.S. forces here in the U.S. to oppress people they don't like - non-Magazis, people without white skin, non-Christians, non-straight, and the poor. It's a lot quieter to disappear people when no one can report it and there isn't anyone to appeal to anyway.

Who's going to protect you now America? Federal government, police, your Mom? Nope nope nope. You noodle armed programmer geeks need to break out your 2nd Amendment rights and get strapped.

The Leahy Law requires the U.S. government to facilitate receipt of information about alleged abuses by U.S. supported forces.

The State Department confirms it no longer operates the HRG, but says it is still receiving reports through other direct channels.

I couldn't find any requirement in the law that requires a public website.

NGOs can still submit information through established contacts or by email.

I would think email is a lot easier than a webform.

interesting story, but why is this on HN.

So many far left conspiracy theories in here, blatant false accusations, assertions and wild fallacies.

The current playbook is so clear and open - it's hard to miss all the red flags.