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US axes website for reporting human rights abuses by US-armed foreign forces
- ARandomerDude 1y ago> US-armed foreign forces means Israel.
- excalibur 1y agoBecause the US government is no longer even pretending to care about human rights.
- propagandist 1y agoAnd it was always purely a pretense. One must laud the transparency this administration has introduced.
- mikeyouse 1y agoOne really mustn't. There are plenty of people who work in government that actually care about human rights - this 'tear it down' mentality relies on the fantasy that it will be rebuilt in some better form. And this kind of 'both sides' bullshit from the article highlights it perfectly: > Blaha had already voiced frustration that despite the HRG passing its pilot phase, the Biden administration had not done enough to publicise it, meaning the provision to "facilitate receipt" of information was still not being fully honoured before the Trump administration deleted the channel entirely. One side didn't publicize it as much as we would have preferred, and the other one deleted it entirely. Both sides are bad!
- runarberg 1y agoThe ‘tear it down’ mentality is about tearing down the covers and exposing America for what it is. That is how I understood your parent at least. The USA has been doing human rights abuses for a long time, without any repercussions. The Iraq war and the Patriot Act is but a few of many many many more examples. For a while now the entire political spectrum in Europe has given this impunity to the USA, with the covers gone, maybe it will be harder—at least for the left of center parties—to give this impunity to the USA.
- dfee 1y ago> There are plenty of people who work in government that actually care about human rights Hopefully most do! All should. However, most employees don’t pick what they work on. So it’s always at the discretion of the boss to determine what’s practically considered, regardless of ideals or desires.
- propagandist 1y ago"Didn't publicize it as much as we would have preferred" is very polite speech for killing millions in "wars on terror" and through arming our great friends, the house of Saud, in their campaign against Yemen. Not going to get into the rich history of overthrowing local rulers and installing puppets through the most gruesome proxies to create "banana republics," the mass murder on a massive scale committed in the previous century, or the genocide that preceded to enable the founding of this state. This place is built on murder and theft. "Both sides" are guilty. One is less shy.
- hypeatei 1y ago> One must laud the transparency this administration has introduced. What transparency? What is transparent about running a meme coin that anyone in the world can bribe- sorry, "invest" in with no trace of who they are while you're President? As for the topic at hand: Trump truly has no vision for anything we do on the world stage so I don't believe it's a deliberate effort at "transparency"
- speakfreely 1y ago> Trump truly has no vision for anything we do on the world stage It confuses me how anyone could look at what's happening in the world and see a lack of a plan. Trump administration seems to actually be unusually focused on foreign policy in this term and using geopolitical statecraft to upend the arrangements that were not working in favor of the US. The tariffs to force countries to choose US or China, putting the fear of Russia in Europe to pump up their defense spending, and the peacemaker strategy in the Middle East to force oil prices down to reduce inflation. It seems to be a very comprehensive strategy.
- hypeatei 1y agoTariffing the entire world, changing his position on Ukraine every week, and hinting at invasion of our allies is not coherent. On the Ukraine conflict, he didn't seem to understand that Putin is untrustworthy until recently.
- actionfromafar 1y agoUpending the arrangements that were not working in favor of Trump!
- cheema33 1y ago> Trump administration seems to actually be unusually focused on foreign policy.. You left out threatening to invade Canada if they did not join the US. And stealing Greenland. And asking Ukraine to give in to Putin's demands. Illegal tariffs that are a tax on common people. Yes, it may come as a shock to you that other countries do not pay the tariffs. We do. And unlike regular taxes, tariffs are not a progressive tax. So rich people love it. By almost all accounts, the US has lost ground globally. We have lost soft power and respect. Global surveys now show that the rest of world now sees us the baddies.
- hirvi74 1y ago[flagged]
- excalibur 1y ago> When did the US government ever care about human rights? July 4 1776
- hirvi74 1y agoEducate me. How cruel was the treatment from the British truly? My understanding was things like "no taxation without representation" was unrealistic due to the sheer distance and amount of time required to travel between the US and the UK. We're talking somewhere around 2-4 months one way. To send a rep back and forth with a message like: US sends rep -> Uk and rep interact -> rep goes back to US with UK decision -> the US give their answer and the rep goes back to UK -> then rep goes back to the US with the UK's decision. Such an interaction could take well over a year. I also thought the US was the lowest taxed colony under British control? Not to mention it's not like the British didn't provide military protection to the colonies as well. I am not saying the revolution was purely unjustified, but I am not really aware of how bad things truly were. My history classes kind of glossed over that part.
- pear01 1y agoFwiw I believe the comment you are replying to was being sarcastic. Thus, you don't need educating. You're making their point.
- whateveracct 1y agoThe United States' way of government was revolutionary for its time, based on the cutting edge of human philosophy in many ways. The Bills of (negative) Rights in particular. It is a shame that it is being destroyed at lightspeed the last year, and worse that many don't seem to care.
- dirtyoldmick 1y agoWe didn't want to be ruled by wankers!
- hydrogen7800 1y agoPerception is reality. If there is at least a pretense of caring about human rights, then there is some modicum of shame upon leadership in not living up to them. And even if the desire was fake, creating a website to "tell us when we are being evil" is real. Pulling off the mask and showing the "true self", which is what the Trump administration is doing (and far more than that, I should add. It is only showing the "true self" of a subset of the population), is removing not only the potential for shame, but also accountability. I don't have to believe that America is/was a flawless champion of human rights to believe that it is much, much worse now.
- gorbachev 1y agoThe US Government has never cared about human rights. It's always been used as a weapon to flog enemies. Allies like Israel can do whatever they like.
- cheema33 1y ago> Allies like Israel can do whatever they like. US has always looked the other way when Israel killed innocent civilians. But there were some limits on how far they could go. The difference now is that those limits have been removed.
- jkestner 1y agoThat's what's interesting about this move (and all the other moves). We've stopped pretending we're good, signaling instead the prospect of violence to enemies foreign and domestic.
- hulitu 1y ago> The US Government has never cared about human rights. This is a blatant lie. /s They do care, and have always cared, about human rights. The human rights of the US Government and their sponsors.
- hirvi74 1y agoNot 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?
- sschueller 1y agoYes, I would think the 'smart evil' thing to do would be keeping it running and just ignoring what you don't like but now people will just send the stuff to WikiLeaks.
- hirvi74 1y agoIt reminds me of a company I used to work for that had a "suggestions box." After the box was full enough, the leadership would just dump it in the trash. Leadership didn't care about employee nor customer opinions. It was just to give people the illusion that their opinion mattered just to placate them.
- lb1lf 1y agoAfter the small-ish company I worked for was bought by $ENGINEERING_MEGACORP, an integration program was promptly launched, during which numerous committees were formed to evaluate all business processes and take the best parts of both companies' DNA. After thorough evaluation, it so happened that the existing practices of the megacorp was adopted without any modifications. The next day, the office shredder had been labelled 'Suggestion box'. Poor sods from head office tried to remove the sign, only to find some miscreant had mixed glass dust in the glue used to affix the nicely engraved sign onto the shredder, making removing it kind of difficult. End result being we got a new shredder. The spare sign which was engraved just in case now adorns the outhouse at my cottage in the woods.
- dfee 1y agoThey wouldn’t send to WikiLeaks before - also, or instead? Do we have any evidence this initiative was ever staffed and effective? We’ve extended a lot of credit to a vested institution to police itself. That’s not worked out in other matters, such as warrantless wiretapping, so why do you think this is effective here? And why would you discredit third parties - especially those designed to be watchdogs? I can see this initiative being an embrace, extend, extinguish strategy. And, I’d imagine closing this reporting portal won’t deter journalists - especially those on the frontline like WikiLeaks - from reporting on incidents.
- mikeyouse 1y ago> 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.
- abirch 1y agoIt defeats the purpose of a veto if the executive branch can ignore the law.
- duxup 1y ago[flagged]
- nerdponx 1y agoAt least I get to feel vindicated. Many many people, including me, have long asserted that the so-called "conservatives" in the Supreme Court are anything but. Historically their decisions have appealed to a certain kind of conservative political base, but the pretense is really starting to wear thin. Limiting the power of the executive branch in general was never the goal, it was only to limit the power of presidents who were willing to challenge the capitalist oligarchy master plan. They know that their job now, along with their allies and Congress, is to simply step aside and manage public outrage while the next phase of the plan is set in motion. I'm not just talking about in recent years either, go back through the Obama and W Bush administrations. You might notice that the conservatives in the court curiously turned more conservative when "their guy" isn't in office.
- wackget 1y agoThey are not conservatives. They are selfservatives.
- aenopix 1y ago[flagged]
- iammjm 1y ago[flagged]
- myth_drannon 1y ago[flagged]
- Fraterkes 1y agoWhat’s wrong with being a subversive force?
- myth_drannon 1y agoI prefer creative forces, but life is not perfect. Every side is a subversive force. I just don't want to be on the receiving side as much as possible. Since what I consider subversive forces(Iran,Russia, China, Islam) try to change my world, I'm against it. I'm fine with US being a subversive force even if I consider some parts of it as a very negative and damaging.
- titzer 1y agoJust wanted to point out that Iran, Russia, China, and Islam have orders of magnitude less power over you than your own political leaders. We should all hold our political leaders accountable when they break the law and ignore the constitution. "subversive forces" is a deflection at best, Orwellian doublespeak at its worst.
- Lendal 1y agoIt depends on what your motives are. Every evil personality you hate started out first as a subversive force. Do you know what the secret end goal of your subversive force flavor-of-the-month is?
- titzer 1y ago"subversive forces"
- tehjoker 1y agoThe US commits human rights abuses constantly. The public should know. The US has no business being on a human rights committee quite frankly. We just committed genocide in Palestine.
- kome 1y agoThe 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/ https://collateralmurder.wikileaks.org/
- procflora 1y agoIndeed, the recent trend of the US government itself posting videos of the drone murders of Venezuelans stands in real stark contrast to how that was handled just 15 years ago.
- hulitu 1y ago15 years ago it was Al-Qaeda.
- threetonesun 1y agoFor better or worse they at least went out of their way to make a coherent narrative for attacks on Al-Qaeda.
- liampulles 1y agoWhile 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.
- wahnfrieden 1y agoThat’s next: https://www.democracynow.org/2025/9/22/headlines/trump_says_it_is_really_illegal_for_journalists_to_give_his_administration_negative_coverage https://www.democracynow.org/2025/9/22/headlines/trump_says_... > Trump Says It Is “Really Illegal” for Journalists to Give His Administration Negative Coverage https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/really-illegal-trump-ups-ante-radical-campaign-free-press-rcna232968 https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/really-i... > The president concluded that when coverage of someone is “bad” 97% of the time, “that’s no longer free speech.” > “They’ll take a great story and they’ll make it bad,” he told reporters, referring to media outlets. “See, I think that’s really illegal.”
- westmeal 1y agoThis fuckin guy is honestly unbelievable.
- hulitu 1y ago> > Trump Says It Is “Really Illegal” for Journalists to Give His Administration Negative Coverage This is not far away from "defamation" in western world. I'm not siding with Trump here, but every western politician seem to think that he/she/it can do whatever he/she/it wants and every criticism must be regarded as defamation.
- MangoToupe 1y agoWell, he's not talking about politicians, he's talking about reporting of his own behavior and actions.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- SoftTalker 1y agoNot 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."
- nerdponx 1y agoI'm actually more surprised that they didn't abuse it, instead of removing it. Remember when Trump's first FCC commissioner ran a public comment campaign on net neutrality, and then heavily botted it to make it look like people were more strongly opposed than they actually were? Remember when there were zero consequences for that? I guess removing it makes a stronger statement.
- actionfromafar 1y agoThe time for nudging and manipulation is apparently over. It's more like "the sky is green, who do you believe, me or your lying eyes? We got 20 trillion dollars from foreign countries. Obey."
- blibble 1y agothe Mitchell and Webb "are we the baddies" sketch certainly comes to mind here
- 1234letshaveatw 1y ago[flagged]
- wnevets 1y agoIs this the greatness I was promised?
- jagged-chisel 1y agoCertainly! No more complaints! See how great we are!
- 1234letshaveatw 1y ago[flagged]
- ultim8k 1y ago[flagged]
- drstewart 1y agoMake HN Comments Great Again
- carbonbioxide 1y agoThat's basically what happened, we're heading that way fast. The fact that leaving the country crosses my mind is a good sign
- drstewart 1y agoA better sign would be you actually leaving. Bye bye!
- wonderwonder 1y agoLots 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.
- actionfromafar 1y ago> 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. The Republican Party acts like the midterms don't matter at all. Approval is plummeting, representatives ignore townhalls like the plague.
- wonderwonder 1y agoWhich is awesome for the dems then correct? Reps will lose seats and then the Dems will have the house and enforce whatever checks and balances they choose. If the reps win then the people have spoken and current actions continue.
- _joel 1y agoWhat about the gerrymandering?
- selectodude 1y agoI think the more obvious possibility is far more sinister.
- docdeek 1y agoThis 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.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- FridayoLeary 1y ago[flagged]
- VerminOctopus1 1y agoDoes Israel not commit human rights abuses?
- nakamoto_damacy 1y ago[flagged]
- FridayoLeary 1y agoNo. not on any organised national level.
- roughly 1y agoThat’s not a guess, it’s a whole-ass story you’ve concocted in your head.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- bigyabai 1y ago
- watwut 1y agoI mean, the minister of war was clear where he stand on these. They are manly acts manly man armies commit.
- daveguy 1y ago[flagged]
- notmyjob 1y agoIt 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.
- giancarlostoro 1y agoAgree. I'm tired of having to do research every time I read a news article. If you want me to trust your news articles give me raw unedited sources, because if I don't see any, I don't trust your assessment.
- ImHereToVote 1y agoIt's hard to say whether the article is lazy or is actually just partisan.
- actionfromafar 1y agoIt’s impossible, actually. Because it’s none of these things.
- masfuerte 1y ago> It sounds like this was mainly being used to report abuses by US allies The website is for reporting abuses by foreign forces armed with US kit. The US isn't in the habit of arming its enemies, so of course the reports concern allies. That's what the website is for.
- BriggyDwiggs42 1y agoIt would still be roughly true that someone is trying to make it harder to report abuses or that they’re achieving the same by incompetence, no?
- nakamoto_damacy 1y ago[flagged]
- actionfromafar 1y agoWhile Israel has outsized influence over the US, it's more like they (ab-)use each other.
- an0malous 1y agoCareful, that’s the kind of comment that makes these posts suddenly “off topic for HN”
- nakamoto_damacy 1y agoThat PG in his opinions against the genocide stands against HN's own censorship politics (which is to protect Israel at any cost, looking at you Daniel!) is enough for me to keep going. Otherwise, I wouldn't care (I don't fight for lost causes.)
- brianblaze420 1y agoIt's hard to not laugh at this. Like it's so fucking stupid and up to par with what's going on.
- redleggedfrog 1y agoJust 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.
- tastyfreeze 1y agoI hope that we never have to find out how ferocious the quiet, "leave me alone", armed populous is. I feel we are on that path and grouping people as the other just fuels the fire.
- nla 1y agoThe 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.
- jagged-chisel 1y agoDefine “easier.” Someone has to read through each email to determine the nature of the complaint, who was involved, how to classify it, etc. If the web form was free text entry, the same effort is required by the receiving humans. You can move the effort slider from the reviewer toward the web dev and the reporter by designing a UI to limit input and pre-classify the complaint. So who has it “easier” now? I guess the server admin?
- hulitu 1y ago> The Leahy Law requires the U.S. government to facilitate receipt of information about alleged abuses by U.S. supported forces. From Wikipedia: "Senator Leahy first introduced this law in 1997 as part of the Foreign Operations Appropriations Act." It is funny that only today they found it. Wikileaks was documenting American war crimes since some time.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- rco8786 1y ago> I would think email is a lot easier than a webform. why
- jmole 1y agoNot sure about you, but when I submit a “contact us” form, I am about 10% sure someone will actually read it. When I send an email that isn’t bounced back, or better yet, get an auto reply with a ticket number, I’m a lot more certain it’s going to get read.
- 23david 1y agointeresting story, but why is this on HN.
- cakeday 1y agoSo many far left conspiracy theories in here, blatant false accusations, assertions and wild fallacies.
- chinathrow 1y agoThe current playbook is so clear and open - it's hard to miss all the red flags.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- jimnotgym 1y agoThey should have just claimed it was hosted on AWS
- alluro2 1y agoTrump is, inevitably, in the comments a lot. And I'm just surprised when people still react to what he does as "unbelievable", "illegal" etc... I get it, but it's weird how persistently people still try to frame Trump's actions into moral, legal, historical, cultural, responsibility or any other framework. He is someone who was born into wealth in the worst way possible, and was never - ever - subject to any moral restrictions, material consequences, or requirements that depend on any positive qualities, effort or success. In those conditions, his bullish way of behaving always got him what he wanted in the moment, without any downsides or counter-weight that would regulate it. Time after time, he was given proof - by us, the society - that there are no consequences, or they are just so unimpactful, and that he can continue doing what he does. There is no framework that he needed to adhere to. He was then placed into practically the same position within the government - being able to do whatever he wants and benefits him (directly, or through benefitting his posse), and there will be no material consequences of any kind. If he comes up to any inconvenient restrictions put in place before, they can just be removed first. And that's it, that's what he's been doing all along. He doesn't have any higher interests, any ulterior motivation, or ambitions - in every situation, he just uses it to get something for himself in that moment - even if openly solely to be able to brag that he did it - and he makes himself look big by lying or belittling others, and that's it. Just a very simple unrestricted narcissist, on grander scale. Their behavior is quite simple to understand and predict. It's just that they can rarely be SO up there, so unrestricted, that people still seem to struggle to not try to tie him to norms and frameworks.
- 9dev 1y agoI concur, Trumps motivation is easy. That of his voters, not so much. They knew what they would get; it was on plain display for them to see. Every single last one of them is guilty of everything that happened and will happen.
- vkou 1y agoThe motivation of the voters becomes a lot more understandable when you stop giving them the benefit of the doubt. This congress and POTUS is, in fact, a good representation of their values, and they aren't ashamed of it. (You could have given them that benefit in 2016, and somewhat in 2020, but definitely not in 2024.)
- LMYahooTFY 1y ago[flagged]
- efitz 1y agoSo there is no other way of reporting such abuses? This one web site that nobody had heard of before today, was our sole way of hearing complaints of this type? Why is it that eliminating one particular web site is somehow a failure of the US Constitution? Yes, Congress is dysfunctional. Welcome to the post 17th amendment world. Repeal that and make the House truly proportional instead of artificially limiting it to 435 members and you’ll go a long way towards fixing a lot of the current problems. Eliminate PACs and donation caps and enforce KYC for donations and we can see who is actually buying our legislators. But on the main topic, the left in the US is seeking judicial intervention to block nearly every single action that the administration takes, and district court judges are handing down nationwide injunctions against the president on a weekly basis. If this is such a crisis, then go judge shopping and get an injunction.
- sjsdaiuasgdia 1y ago> If this is such a crisis, then go judge shopping and get an injunction. So the supreme court can issue a shadow docket ruling a week later, with zero rationalization or justification, staying the injunction?
- ea550ff70a 1y agoare we the baddies?
- g-b-r 1y agoThis is recent and has more votes than all but one the posts in the front page, why is it not there?
- g-b-r 1y agoand why was the comment downvoted :shrug: