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Why the Senate Torture Report Doesn’t Matter | Interview with David Remes
breakingtheset on Dec 9, 2014
Abby Martin speaks with human rights lawyer, David Remes, about the contents of the newly released Senate torture report summary and how it will impact the future of the “war on terror”.
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CIA Torture Report Incomplete as Key Documents Remain Withheld
TheRealNews on Dec 9, 2014
Investigative journalist Marcy Wheeler says the Obama is using the CIA to protect itself and Bush-era officials from being legally implicated in torture.
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Redacted: What does the CIA torture report leave out?
RT America on Dec 9, 2014
The US Senate on Tuesday released a report detailing the CIA’s use of torture following the September 11th terrorist attacks, but many still want more information to be released. Focusing only on the spy agency’s “black sites,” the report fails to provide data on sites of alleged and confirmed abuse, including the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, the infamous Abu Ghraib prison and a host of other sites. The Government Accountability Project’s Jesselyn Radack discusses with RT’s Ben Swann.
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‘CIA torture report first step, accountability is next, any official could be involved’
RT on Dec 9, 2014
Ahead of the release of CIA torture report, the US has beefed up security at its government and military facilities around the world – fearing a violent backlash. Ann Wright, retired US army colonel says such measures are not by chance.
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Feinstein: CIA torture techniques far more brutal than approved (FULL SPEECH)
RT on Dec 9, 2014
Senator Dianne Feinstein called the practices detailed in the declassified report on the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation program a “stain on our values and on our history.”
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Senate Torture Report Shows Need for Accountability
ACLU
Dec. 9, 2014
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: 212-549-2666, media@aclu.org
WASHINGTON – The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence today released the executive summary and findings of its landmark report on the CIA’s rendition, secret detention, and torture program.
The full report was adopted in December 2012 by a bipartisan majority of the committee after nearly five years of investigation. Today’s release comes after long negotiations between the committee and the White House over redactions requested by the CIA.
Responding to the report, the American Civil Liberties Union released a detailed plan for full accountability, and ACLU Executive Director Anthony D. Romero had this reaction:
This is a shocking report, and it is impossible to read it without feeling immense outrage that our government engaged in these terrible crimes. This report definitively drags into the light the horrific details of illegal torture, details that both the Bush and Obama administrations have worked hard to sweep under the rug. The government officials who authorized illegal activity need to be held accountable. The administration’s current position – doing absolutely nothing – is tantamount to issuing tacit pardons. Tacit pardons are worse than formal ones because they undermine the rule of law. The CIA’s wrongful acts violated basic human rights, served as a huge recruiting tool for our enemies, and alienated allies world-wide. Our response to the damning evidence in this report will define us as a nation.
This should be the beginning of a process, not the end. The report should shock President Obama and Congress into action, to make sure that torture and cruelty are never used again. The Department of Justice needs to appoint a special prosecutor to hold the architects and perpetrators of the torture program accountable for its design, implementation, and cover-ups. Congress must assert its constitutional role in the system of checks and balances, and oversee the CIA, which in this report sounds more like a rogue paramilitary group than the intelligence gathering agency that it’s supposed to be. The president needs to use the moral authority of his office to formally recognize both the torture program’s victims and those in government who resisted this shameful and illegal policy.
Over the course of a decade, ACLU FOIA litigation has resulted in the release of the 100,000 pages of documents relating to the torture policies, which are available in a searchable database.
The ACLU’s full recommendations are at:
https://www.aclu.org/national-security/us-torture-program-blueprint-accountability
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Take Action!
Accountability for torture today is critical for stopping it tomorrow
ACLU
For over a decade, the American people have demanded to know about post-9/11 torture conducted in our names. Now we finally have some answers. The Senate just released its summary report detailing widespread and illegal CIA torture during the Bush years.
Over a hundred people were abused and tortured by the CIA and its contractors, often in secret prisons, set up in countries such as Poland, Romania and Thailand.
We have long known that the Bush administration’s torture program was authorized at the highest levels, including the White House, the Department of Justice, the CIA, and the Department of Defense. We now also know that the CIA misled the public, Congress, and other oversight agencies about the scope and extent of its torture and the significance of the information obtained through torture.
In our system, no one should be above the law or beyond its reach, no matter how senior the official. Although some lower-level military personnel were prosecuted for their roles in the torture program, none of the officials who authorized the use of torture or oversaw its implementation have ever been charged with a crime.
We can’t undo the damage that was done, but we can declare today that it won’t stand unexamined. Ask Attorney General Eric Holder to appoint a special prosecutor.
via https://www.aclu.org/secure/cia-torture?ms=web_141209_nationalsecurity_ciatorture_BOR
see also:
Torture Report Executive Summary
Required Reading: Prequels to the Torture Report-ACLU
Torture Accountability Blueprint
Live Coverage of the Senate Torture Report By Glenn Greenwald
Reply to Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s Lame Foreword to Senate Torture Report
from the archives:
#NDAA 2015 Passes In House of Representatives + It Allows Obama To Expand War Against ISIS
ACLU Obtains Detailed Official Record Of CIA Torture Program
Glenn Greenwald on CIA Interrogation Probe, Obama and Why the Media Failed on Covering Torture
Newly Released Detainee Statements Provide More Evidence Of CIA Torture Program
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