7 ms·

The C.I.A. Torture Cover-Up

193 points by r0h1n 13y ago

TrainedMonkey 13y ago
"Ms. Feinstein said that when Senate staff members reviewed thousands of documents describing those interrogations in 2009, they found that the C.I.A.’s leadership seriously misled the committee when it described the interrogations program to the panel in 2006, 'only hours before President Bush disclosed the program to the public.'" Am I understanding this right? They found gross violations in 2009 and only raising concerns now.
- leeoniya 13y ago
  "seriously misled" you'll never hear the word "lied" because it's politically incorrect when referring to those in power.
dmix 13y ago
The CIA destroying tapes of torture interrogations is probably one of the most blatant examples of intelligence agencies operating lawlessly, with the executive branch in full knowledge of them operating in that fashion, but choosing not to do anything about it. > Under President Obama, prosecutors exonerated the officials who ordered those tapes destroyed. No one was held accountable. Charges were quietly dropped in 2010: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_CIA_interrogation_tapes_destruction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_CIA_interrogation_tapes_d... This example is such a clear disregard for the law, even more so than most NSA leaks.
- serf 13y ago
  the NSA stuff may be more vague, it's intended to be, but it's no less illegal. Instead of minimizing their disregard for the law in the case of illegal spying, please consider your wording.
  - dmix 13y ago
    Agreed, I'm not attempting to downplay the NSA leaks, my point was that the NSA operates under pseudo-law rubber stamped by the intelligence committees, congress, and FISA. The CIA combined with executive branch blatantly disregard even the oversight committees. Another example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Intelligence_Agency#Covert_programs_hidden_from_Congress https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Intelligence_Agency#Co...
amckenna 13y ago
> "an illegal search of computers (provided to the Senate staff by the C.I.A.) that contained drafts of the internal review." Sounds like the Senate review committee needs to work on their opsec and move the files to a safer location after receiving them.
- Phlarp 13y ago
  The whole point was that the Senate staff could only look at these (classified) documents in a secure room / network provided by the CIA. Why this procedure is flawed is left as an exercise for the reader
  - amckenna 13y ago
    If the Executive branch is being investigated by the Legislative branch then the security of the documents should be assured by the Legislative or better yet Judicial branch. The process sounds broken.
    - Phlarp 13y ago
      Their staffs don't have the necessary clearance level to administer such a network.
mullingitover 13y ago
This is a great example of how the Constitution and our system of laws is meaningless as long as two branches conspire to make it so. In this case, the executive branch allowed the torture to go unpunished, and the legislative branch allowed the executive branch to do so. There is a third party that needs to acquiesce to the lawlessness: the voting public. Well, sort of. The current president promised them that there would be accountability for the torture, but that campaign promise went the way of so many others. So it goes.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- rthomas6 13y ago
  The "fourth estate" is traditionally the press. Unfortunately most of the press does a shit job in keeping the various elites accountable. Imagine if reporters could ask the kinds of questions we want them to ask: "Mr. President, should James Clapper be prosecuted for lying to congress, which is a felony?", "Mr. President, did you authorize waterboarding at Guantanamo Bay?", "Did the USA incite a coup in the Ukraine?" Unfortunately nowadays if someone asks questions like these, their access to these people will be promptly removed, and they're likely to get fired from their news outlet for pissing off news sources.
  - aspensmonster 13y ago
    Well, the fourth estate is owned by the elites.
    - Crito 13y ago
      Not all of it, but certainly the bits that are permitted to have access to people like the president are; and those are the parts that really count.
  - mixmax 13y ago
    While I agree with your sentiment the real world isn't so simple. The primary qualification of a good reporter is access. Access to sources, access to documents, access to hints from people in power and access to confront and interview people in power. For a reporter there's a fine line between gaining and keeping access and using it to do reporting. Access relies on trust, reporting often relies on breaking it. Since people in power have the ability to cut you out of the loop you need to be very careful about what you write else you'll find that your calls aren't being returned, you aren't being invited to press conferences and can't get interviews. Which makes you useless as a reporter. Source: A lot of my friends work in media, and quite a few of them have relations to the political game, have interviewed heads of state, etc. Most of them are truly troubled by this state of affairs, but what can they do?
bediger4000 13y ago
The editorial linked-to is worth a read: short, to the point, and harsh, almost as if they had summoned Hunter S. Thompson from the dead to write it. The editorial does miss out on naming the CIA's acting general counsel, whose name is mentioned 1,600 times in the (unreleased/still classified) Senate Committee Report. To be clear, the current CIA general counsel is one of the torturers, and also apparently fighting tooth and nail to not release the report. Where are the Snowdens of yesteryear?
- a3n 13y ago
  > Where are the Snowdens of yesteryear? The ones that got caught were probably extraordinarily renditioned.
themgt 13y ago
Everyone absolutely must read Feinstein's full statement. Most of the press coverage is woefully lacking in the details and context that move this into really serious political/constitutional shitstorm territory http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/world/2014/03/11/transcript-dianne-feinstein-statement-cia-investigations/oflzYokp7VcqPm8KpkRlaJ/story.html http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/world/2014/03/11/transcript-...
- a3n 13y ago
  This would make a great opening statement.
- Zigurd 13y ago
  Significantly, Robert Eatinger, the CIA lawyer who threatened Feinstein's staffers was the same person who OK'ed the destruction of the torture tapes, and who knew that the torture was way out of bounds in at least two specific ways: Waterboarding was widely used and used repeatedly, and that sleep deprivation was also used beyond the parameters that were OK'ed, never mind that both are torture in the first place. And what are the odds that the known crimes are the tip of the iceberg? In other words, he OK'ed the destruction of evidence of very serious crimes.
blisterpeanuts 13y ago
“the C.I.A.’s search may also have violated the Fourth Amendment, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, as well as Executive Order 12333, which prohibits the C.I.A. from conducting domestic searches or surveillance.” -Sen. Feinstein Yet, the NSA is not prevented from domestic searches and surveillance? How is this possible or consistent with EO 12333, let alone the U.S. Constitution? Methinks Senator Feinstein doth protest too much. She supported NSA's massive and unconstitutional domestic surveillance. Now she knows what it feels like to be spied upon, eh?

193 points by r0h1n 13y ago

"Ms. Feinstein said that when Senate staff members reviewed thousands of documents describing those interrogations in 2009, they found that the C.I.A.’s leadership seriously misled the committee when it described the interrogations program to the panel in 2006, 'only hours before President Bush disclosed the program to the public.'" Am I understanding this right? They found gross violations in 2009 and only raising concerns now.

leeoniya 13y ago
"seriously misled" you'll never hear the word "lied" because it's politically incorrect when referring to those in power.

dmix 13y ago

The CIA destroying tapes of torture interrogations is probably one of the most blatant examples of intelligence agencies operating lawlessly, with the executive branch in full knowledge of them operating in that fashion, but choosing not to do anything about it. > Under President Obama, prosecutors exonerated the officials who ordered those tapes destroyed. No one was held accountable. Charges were quietly dropped in 2010: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_CIA_interrogation_tapes_destruction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_CIA_interrogation_tapes_d... This example is such a clear disregard for the law, even more so than most NSA leaks.

serf 13y ago
the NSA stuff may be more vague, it's intended to be, but it's no less illegal. Instead of minimizing their disregard for the law in the case of illegal spying, please consider your wording.
- dmix 13y ago
  Agreed, I'm not attempting to downplay the NSA leaks, my point was that the NSA operates under pseudo-law rubber stamped by the intelligence committees, congress, and FISA. The CIA combined with executive branch blatantly disregard even the oversight committees. Another example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Intelligence_Agency#Covert_programs_hidden_from_Congress https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Intelligence_Agency#Co...

amckenna 13y ago

> "an illegal search of computers (provided to the Senate staff by the C.I.A.) that contained drafts of the internal review." Sounds like the Senate review committee needs to work on their opsec and move the files to a safer location after receiving them.

Phlarp 13y ago
The whole point was that the Senate staff could only look at these (classified) documents in a secure room / network provided by the CIA. Why this procedure is flawed is left as an exercise for the reader
- amckenna 13y ago
  If the Executive branch is being investigated by the Legislative branch then the security of the documents should be assured by the Legislative or better yet Judicial branch. The process sounds broken.
  - Phlarp 13y ago
    Their staffs don't have the necessary clearance level to administer such a network.

mullingitover 13y ago

This is a great example of how the Constitution and our system of laws is meaningless as long as two branches conspire to make it so. In this case, the executive branch allowed the torture to go unpunished, and the legislative branch allowed the executive branch to do so. There is a third party that needs to acquiesce to the lawlessness: the voting public. Well, sort of. The current president promised them that there would be accountability for the torture, but that campaign promise went the way of so many others. So it goes.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
rthomas6 13y ago
The "fourth estate" is traditionally the press. Unfortunately most of the press does a shit job in keeping the various elites accountable. Imagine if reporters could ask the kinds of questions we want them to ask: "Mr. President, should James Clapper be prosecuted for lying to congress, which is a felony?", "Mr. President, did you authorize waterboarding at Guantanamo Bay?", "Did the USA incite a coup in the Ukraine?" Unfortunately nowadays if someone asks questions like these, their access to these people will be promptly removed, and they're likely to get fired from their news outlet for pissing off news sources.
- aspensmonster 13y ago
  Well, the fourth estate is owned by the elites.
  - Crito 13y ago
    Not all of it, but certainly the bits that are permitted to have access to people like the president are; and those are the parts that really count.
- mixmax 13y ago
  While I agree with your sentiment the real world isn't so simple. The primary qualification of a good reporter is access. Access to sources, access to documents, access to hints from people in power and access to confront and interview people in power. For a reporter there's a fine line between gaining and keeping access and using it to do reporting. Access relies on trust, reporting often relies on breaking it. Since people in power have the ability to cut you out of the loop you need to be very careful about what you write else you'll find that your calls aren't being returned, you aren't being invited to press conferences and can't get interviews. Which makes you useless as a reporter. Source: A lot of my friends work in media, and quite a few of them have relations to the political game, have interviewed heads of state, etc. Most of them are truly troubled by this state of affairs, but what can they do?

bediger4000 13y ago

The editorial linked-to is worth a read: short, to the point, and harsh, almost as if they had summoned Hunter S. Thompson from the dead to write it. The editorial does miss out on naming the CIA's acting general counsel, whose name is mentioned 1,600 times in the (unreleased/still classified) Senate Committee Report. To be clear, the current CIA general counsel is one of the torturers, and also apparently fighting tooth and nail to not release the report. Where are the Snowdens of yesteryear?

a3n 13y ago
> Where are the Snowdens of yesteryear? The ones that got caught were probably extraordinarily renditioned.

themgt 13y ago

Everyone absolutely must read Feinstein's full statement. Most of the press coverage is woefully lacking in the details and context that move this into really serious political/constitutional shitstorm territory http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/world/2014/03/11/transcript-dianne-feinstein-statement-cia-investigations/oflzYokp7VcqPm8KpkRlaJ/story.html http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/world/2014/03/11/transcript-...

a3n 13y ago
This would make a great opening statement.
Zigurd 13y ago
Significantly, Robert Eatinger, the CIA lawyer who threatened Feinstein's staffers was the same person who OK'ed the destruction of the torture tapes, and who knew that the torture was way out of bounds in at least two specific ways: Waterboarding was widely used and used repeatedly, and that sleep deprivation was also used beyond the parameters that were OK'ed, never mind that both are torture in the first place. And what are the odds that the known crimes are the tip of the iceberg? In other words, he OK'ed the destruction of evidence of very serious crimes.

blisterpeanuts 13y ago

“the C.I.A.’s search may also have violated the Fourth Amendment, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, as well as Executive Order 12333, which prohibits the C.I.A. from conducting domestic searches or surveillance.” -Sen. Feinstein Yet, the NSA is not prevented from domestic searches and surveillance? How is this possible or consistent with EO 12333, let alone the U.S. Constitution? Methinks Senator Feinstein doth protest too much. She supported NSA's massive and unconstitutional domestic surveillance. Now she knows what it feels like to be spied upon, eh?