Dear Senator Feinstein:

Earlier this month, I sent you a letter outlining the many reasons not to confirm Michael Mukasey as our next Attorney General. A few days later, I read your op-ed in the Los Angeles Times. I started to compose another letter to you, but then I saw a response from activist David Swanson. He wrote:

"The Senate is likely to approve as our top law enforcement official a man who refuses to call torture techniques torture because doing so might aid in the prosecution of torturers. Feinstein claims that Mukasey admits that the military cannot waterboard. But she avoids the fact that the CIA has been doing the waterboarding, and that Mukasey will not reject the practice. Feinstein then turns around and proposes banning waterboarding, as if it were legal. She adds that the Senate should question Mukasey about it... AFTER confirming him."

Senator, with all due respect -- are you nuts? George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and their administration have conspired to break the law and torture people. In the America I grew up in, this kind of depravity was unthinkable. I believed only kidnappers and molesters committed those crimes. Today, it is the United States Government.

Senator Feinstein, Mr. Mukasey is a former judge! He has already said that, as Attorney General, he will not stop the government from employing torture techniques that are already illegal. That in and of itself makes him unfit for the job. Passing another law banning waterboarding will not make it more of a crime than it already is. If Mukasey won't enforce the laws against torture that have been on our books for over two centuries, what makes you think he will enforce any new laws Congress passes?

We don't need another Alberto Gonzales, who helped Bush circumvent laws he didn't like. Those who break the laws are criminals, Senator. We need an Attorney General who will uphold the law and the Constitution. Mukasey is not such a man.

In 1938, Adolf Hitler demanded that Nazi Germany be allowed to seize western Czechoslovakia.  Hitler's secret police, the Gestapo, were infamous for using what they called "enhanced interrogation techniques," including waterboarding. Nevertheless, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain appeased Hitler and give him the part of Czechoslovakia that he demanded.  I am not comparing Bush to Hitler, but Mukasey, it seems, is another Chamberlain. Instead of standing up to torture, Mukasey is prepared to look the other way. He will give Bush what he wants, regardless of the law.

It seems that the United States Senate is also full of Chamberlains. Although each Senator swears an oath to uphold the Constitution, many Senators are not taking their oaths seriously. We need a Senate that fights torture, not appeases it. Instead, the Senate has looked the other way as Bush, Cheney, Gonzales, and company conspired to torture people. Even if Mukasey does not support torture, he will not prevent it. There are some issues where compromise is appropriate. Torture is not one of them.

Since moving to California, I have twice voted for you to represent our state in the Senate. Your decision to support Mukasey -- who will not condemn illegal torture techniques as illegal -- has shown me that voting for you was a mistake. I hope that I am wrong, and that you will reconsider your support of Mukasey's nomination.

Yours sincerely,

C. Colvin