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+--- Thread: Senate releases CIA torture report (/thread-13424.html)
Senate releases CIA torture report - David Guyatt - 13-12-2014
Tracy Riddle Wrote:Suskind also revealed that "Bush administration had information from a top Iraqi intelligence official that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq intelligence they received in plenty of time to stop an invasion.' "
Interestingly enough, this was the plot of the Matt Damon film, Green Zone.
Senate releases CIA torture report - Magda Hassan - 13-12-2014
11 December 2014
CIA Torture Pseudonyms
PaulD sends:
The press has been hard at work uncovering the pseudonyms used and nailing down the true identities of the site. I compile them here.
The most important outstanding questions: Who is Officer "2", who are Detainees "R" & "S," and where is detention site "red?" While I feel pretty strongly about redacting the names of low-level personnel from the NSA slides, which are technical in nature, but I have zero interest in protecting torturers. The public has a right to know where these black sites were, and the detainees deserve a name and a fair trial.
Detention sites (Known):
BLACK - Romania BLUE - Poland
BROWN - Afghanistan
COBALT - Afghanistan
GRAY - Afghanistan
GREEN - Thailand
INDIGO - Guantanamo
MAROON - Guantanamo
ORANGE - Afghanistan
VIOLET - Lithuania
BROWN - Afghanistan
COBALT - Afghanistan
GRAY - Afghanistan
GREEN - Thailand
INDIGO - Guantanamo
MAROON - Guantanamo
ORANGE - Afghanistan
VIOLET - Lithuania
Detention site (unknown) RED - This could be an additional site in one of the above countries, or someplace entirely different. It is mentioned only once in the report, on page 140 of 499, and the entry is almost entirely redacted.
Companies: Company Y - Mitchell, Jessen & Associates, based in Spokane, Washington.
Businesses: Business Q - Associated with Zubair, associated with Hambali
Torture Doctors: "Grayson Swigert" - James Mitchell "Hammond Dunbar" - Bruce Jessen
CIA Officers: CIA Officer 1 - COBALT Site manager - Matthew Zirbel CIA Officer 2 - Torturer at COBALT and BLUE - "untrained and unqualified" "hung detainees up for long periods with their toes barely touching the ground". A litany of other abuses are mentioned. Received a one year letter of reprimand, got bonuses anyway. Retired from CIA in 2004.
Assets: Asset X - Directly involved in the capture of KSM. Asset Y - Reports on Janat Gul
Persons: Person 1 - al-Ghuraba group member, with an interest in airplanes and aviation. "intelligence indicates the interest was unrelated to terrorist activity."
Detainees: Detainee R - Held by foreign government, rendered to CIA custody Detainee S - Held by foreign government
Sources: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2014/12/09/decoding-the-secret-black-sites-on-the-senates-report-on-the-cia-interrogation-program/
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/12/10/us-usa-cia-torture-lithuania-idUSKBN0JO18M20141210
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/11/world/cia-torture-report-draws-world-reaction.html?smid=tw-share&_r=0
http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=zirbel_1
https://news.vice.com/video/the-architect?utm_source=vicenewsfb
http://www.wbrz.com/news/psychologist-defends-harsh-cia-interrogations/
http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/cia-torture-report/cia-paid-torture-teachers-more-80-million-n264756
http://cryptome.org/2014/12/cia-torture-nyms.htm
Senate releases CIA torture report - Albert Doyle - 13-12-2014
David Guyatt Wrote:Interestingly enough, this was the plot of the Matt Damon film, Green Zone.
"Green Zone" told the truth about American WMD lies and lost 42 million dollars at the box office. The propaganda film "Argo", which was a film designed to fan the flames against Iran, made 232 million.
Senate releases CIA torture report - Peter Lemkin - 13-12-2014
Justice Antonin Scalia Says The Constitution Is Silent On Torture
MARK SHERMAN
Posted: 12/12/2014
WASHINGTON (AP) Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia is joining the debate over the Senate's torture report by saying it's hard to rule out the use of extreme measures to extract information if millions of lives were threatened.
Scalia told a Swiss broadcast network that American and European liberals who say such tactics may never be used are being self-righteous.
The 78-year-old justice said he doesn't "think it's so clear at all," especially if interrogators were trying to find a ticking nuclear bomb. Scalia has made similar comments in the past, but he renewed his remarks on Wednesday in an interview with Radio Television Suisse, a day after the release of the Senate report detailing the CIA's harsh interrogation of suspected terrorists. RTS aired the interview on Friday.
"Listen, I think it's very facile for people to say, 'Oh, torture is terrible.' You posit the situation where a person that you know for sure knows the location of a nuclear bomb that has been planted in Los Angeles and will kill millions of people. You think it's an easy question? You think it's clear that you cannot use extreme measures to get that information out of that person?" Scalia said.
Scalia also said that while there are U.S. laws against torture, nothing in the Constitution appears to prohibit harsh treatment of suspected terrorists. "I don't know what article of the Constitution that would contravene," he said. Scalia spent a college semester in Switzerland at the University of Fribourg.
The 30-minute interview touched on a range of topics, including the financing of political campaigns, the death penalty and gay marriage, about which Scalia said he should not comment because it is likely the court soon will have the issue before it. Asked about money and U.S. elections, Scalia scoffed that "women may pay more each year to buy cosmetics" than is spent on local, state and federal elections combined.
His comments about interrogation techniques echoed remarks he also has made to foreign audiences. In 2008, he used the example of the hidden bomb. "It seems to me you have to say, as unlikely as that is, it would be absurd to say you couldn't, I don't know, stick something under the fingernail, smack him in the face. It would be absurd to say you couldn't do that," he said.
A year earlier, Canada's Globe and Mail newspaper reported that Scalia invoked fictional TV counterterrorism agent Jack Bauer using torture to get terrorism suspects to reveal information that could help authorities foil an imminent attack.
"Is any jury going to convict Jack Bauer? I don't think so," he said. "So the question is really whether we believe in these absolutes. And ought we believe in these absolutes."
In January, Scalia seemed less concerned about the safety of residents of Los Angeles when the court heard arguments about whether anonymous tips could justify a traffic stop. Urging the lawyer for two suspects appealing their conviction to stand firm, Scalia suggested that not even information that a carload of terrorists heading to Los Angeles with an atomic bomb would be enough to justify police stopping the car, if the tip came from an anonymous source.
"I want you to say, 'Let the car go. Bye-bye, LA,'" Scalia said.
Senate releases CIA torture report - Albert Doyle - 13-12-2014
Scalia is doing what he was intended for. The Constitution doesn't really say anything against slavery so it makes sense that we could get the economy back in line by re-instituting slavery in America.
Senate releases CIA torture report - Drew Phipps - 13-12-2014
It's true that the original Constitution didn't outlaw slavery, but the 13th Amendment did. Scalia would not tell you that the Constitution is "silent" on slavery.
Also, "anonymous tips" are notoriously unreliable. The fact that the tipster doesn't want to be known should be of great concern to law enforcement.
What Scalia didn't say was, "well, you can't pull over a car full of terrorists just based on an anonymous tip, but you CAN dispatch a police car to observe them, and see if they do anything worthy of a stop, such as failing to signal a lane change, or perhaps failing to put the "outsize load" red flags on the bits of the atomic bomb that protrude from the bed of the truck."
Senate releases CIA torture report - Albert Doyle - 13-12-2014
Scalia is trying to reduce the issue to a FOX level. The founding fathers very much did repudiate torture. Typical of Republicans Scalia is lying:
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2014/12/09/why-founding-fathers-thought-banning-torture-foundational-us-constitution
Senate releases CIA torture report - Magda Hassan - 14-12-2014
US hid UK links in CIA torture report at request of British spy agencies
Downing Street says UK intelligence asked for redactions to be made in Senate report on the grounds of national security[URL="http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/dec/11/cia-torture-report-british-spy-agencies-discussed-redactions#img-1"]
[/URL] The headquarters of MI6 in London. Photograph: Ben Stansall/AFP/Getty Images Rowena Mason and Ian Cobain
Friday 12 December 2014 18.45 AEST
References to Britain's intelligence agencies were deleted at their request from the damning US report on the CIA's use of torture after 9/11, it has emerged.
A spokesman for David Cameron acknowledged the UK had been granted deletions in advance of the publication, contrasting with earlier assertions by No 10. Downing Street said any redactions were only requested on "national security" grounds and contained nothing to suggest UK agencies had participated in torture or rendition.
However, the admission will fuel suspicions that the report while heavily critical of the CIA was effectively sanitised to conceal the way in which close allies of the US became involved in the global kidnap and torture programme that was mounted after the al-Qaida attacks.
On Wednesday, the day the report was published, asked whether redactions had been sought, Cameron's official spokesman told reporters there had been "none whatsoever, to my knowledge".
However, on Thursday, the prime minister's deputy official spokesman said: "My understanding is that no redactions were sought to remove any suggestion that there was UK involvement in any alleged torture or rendition. But I think there was a conversation with the agencies and their US counterparts on the executive summary. Any redactions sought there would have been on national security grounds in the way we might have done with any other report."
The two main cases relevant to the involvement of Britain's spying agencies related to Binyam Mohamed, a UK citizen tortured and secretly flown to Guantánamo Bay, and the abduction of Abdel Hakim Belhaj and Sami-al-Saadi, two prominent Libyan dissidents, and their families, who were flown to Tripoli in 2004 where they were tortured by Muammar Gaddafi's secret police.
There is no reference at all in the Senate's 500-page summary report to UK intelligence agencies or the British territory of Diego Garcia used by the US as a military base. But the executive summary contained heavy redactions throughout, prompting speculation that references to US allies has been erased.
In the wake of the Senate report, the UK government is coming under increasing pressure to order a more transparent inquiry into the actions of MI5 and MI6 amid claims of British complicity in the US torture programme.
Asked about the need for a full public inquiry, Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister, conceded yesterday that he was open to the idea if an outstanding investigation by the parliamentary intelligence and security committee, which meets weekly in secret, leaves remaining questions unanswered. No 10 also suggested Cameron had not ruled this out if the ISC does not settle the torture issue.
The government had initially commissioned an inquiry by retired judge Sir Peter Gibson to look at the UK's treatment of detainees after 9/11. However, he only managed a preliminary report raising 27 serious questions about the behaviour of the UK security services, before it was replaced by an investigation handled by the ISC in December last year.
The ISC's report on the UK's involvement in rendition after 9/11 will not, however, be completed before next year's election, so it is unclear how many members of the nine-strong panel of MPs and peers will still be in parliament to complete the work.
The current chair, former foreign secretary Sir Malcolm Rifkind, said that the ISC's previous examination of the UK's involvement in rendition in 2007, which absolved the agencies, had "quite rightly been severely criticised, because the committee at the time wasn't given by MI6 all the material in their files".
Rifkind said he was confident that that would not happen again. Yet the current ISC investigation will not examine the two key cases of the Libyan dissidents being kidnapped and delivered to the Gaddafi regime because they are the subject of a police inquiry.
MPs from all three main parties said the UK agencies' requests for deletions from the US underlined the need for a more transparent public inquiry than the one being conducted by the ISC, which hands its reports to Downing Street for pre-approval.
David Davis, the Tory MP and former shadow home secretary, said: "Downing Street's U-turn on its previous denial that redactions had taken place tell us what we already know that there was complicity, and that it wasn't reflected in the Senate report. "We know from the behaviour of the previous government with respect to the Binyam Mohamed case, that the term national security includes national embarrassment."
Sarah Teather, the Lib Dem former children's minister, also added: "It's not good enough to kick it into the future and hope a future government will pick it up. We've had all sorts of semi-inquiries. Watching what's happened in the last couple of days, as comments flip around, that's the experience of campaigners who've been trying to get justice on behalf of people who have accused the British intelligence services of acting in this way."
Diane Abbott, the Labour MP, said that "as a first step we need to know what was removed from the reports" and secondly more must be revealed about what UK government ministers knew at the time.
The US is at least trying to be honest about what went on," she said. "To their shame, the UK authorities are still trying to hide their complicity in torture. We need to know how much ministers knew. And if they didn't know why not?"
Earlier Abbott, who ran for the Labour leadership against both Miliband brothers, said ex-foreign secretary David Miliband needed to be "completely transparent" about his involvement in the era.
But Ed Miliband came to his brother's strong defence as he was asked yesterday whether the former cabinet minister had "questions to answer".
"He's talked about these things in the past," the Labour leader said. "I know how seriously he took these things in government. I know he answered questions about this in the House of Commons while he was in government. He is never someone who would ever countenance the British state getting involved in this sort of activity."
Pressed on whether Tony Blair had questions to answer, Ed Miliband said: "Anyone who has read this report will be deeply troubled. I'm not going to speak for that report.
"The government has previously announced an inquiry into these issues, and then held off on the inquiry because there are court cases going on. It's right to let those court cases take their course here."
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/dec/11/cia-torture-report-british-spy-agencies-discussed-redactions
Senate releases CIA torture report - David Guyatt - 14-12-2014
Peter Lemkin Wrote:Scalia told a Swiss broadcast network that American and European liberals who say such tactics may never be used are being self-righteous.
All of Europe have signed the UN Convention Against Torture, so they're being lawful not self righteous. The 156 signatories undertake to take effective measures against torture, and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment in any territory under their jurisdiction.
Come to that the US signed that convention too.
Scalia needs to go back to law school and refresh his legal knowledge.
Senate releases CIA torture report - Peter Lemkin - 14-12-2014
David Guyatt Wrote:Peter Lemkin Wrote:Scalia told a Swiss broadcast network that American and European liberals who say such tactics may never be used are being self-righteous.
All of Europe have signed the UN Convention Against Torture, so they're being lawful not self righteous. The 156 signatories undertake to take effective measures against torture, and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment in any territory under their jurisdiction.
Come to that the US signed that convention too.
Scalia needs to go back to law school and refresh his legal knowledge.
And, there is US internal legislation banning torture...but they play the game in the USA of just what constitutes 'torture'...but sadly the supposed top legal authorities in the USA have almost zero knowledge and less regard for both national and international laws....and respecting international law even if it trumps US laws IS part of the Constitution.