Reading about all of this I wonder about the lack of oversight and accountability, and misleading answers to various governmental committees (and to the public,

Reading about all of this I wonder about the lack of oversight and accountability, and misleading answers to various governmental committees (and to the public, of course). And I know the blanket answer is "well, we cannot divulge our secrets, it would endanger national security!". But that's often not true. It's self-evident that making detailed records of active intelligence operations public would be self-damaging, but lying about torture is not one of those things. Saying "well, the president claimed we were supposed to guarantee detainees the same standards of treatment as under American law", when someone who conducted the rendition program says "that's a lie" is not the kind of secret you suppress because it would otherwise endanger national security -- it's the kind of secret you suppress because you're undemocratic. Same with destroying records of torture. The underlying matter here is: how did the US as a (modern) country decide that some things should not be subjected to democracy, that some rules cannot be decided or at least known by the people, and that this must be done "for their own good"? "But national security!" is a bullshit answer. No-one is asking them to divulge the list of their covert agents right now.