In February, Feinstein began a probe into the CIA’s detention and interrogation practices, and not a lot has leaked out since then. Feinstein said in April that the committee had finished a review into the cases of two al-Qaeda detainees subject to enhanced interrogation, and indicated in a letter to President Obama that month that her study would last “six to eight months.” Which would mean it should be wrapping up now-ish.

But it’s going to continue until “sometime early next year,” according to Feinstein spokesman Phil LaVelle. Dealing as the review does with highly classified information, LaVelle declined to provide many specifics, or to elaborate on the reasons for the delay. But he said that “additional staff have been hired and are working full-time” on the review — he wouldn’t provide a specific number — who are “moving through the cases of the detainees,” a task that involves reviewing “millions of documents.” LaVelle added that the review is “not related to DOJ investigation,” although that doesn’t evidently foreclose the prospect of Durham reviewing the Feinstein panel for potential prosecutorial action.

Will the public be able to see the results of the committee’s inquiry? It hasn’t held any public hearings this year. “There will be a final report,” LaVelle said, and “the committee will made a determination on what declassified information can be released.”

Asked for a comment on Feinstein’s panel and the CIA’s role in it, CIA spokesman George Little said only, ” We continue to cooperate with the investigation.”

Well, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) agrees.

During Wednesday’s Senate Judiciary hearing on insurers’ anti-trust exemption status, the California Democrat blasted away at the industry, saying it “lacks a moral compass” and puts a lust for profits above the needs of patients.

Premiums are out of hand. I think CEO salaries are out of hand. I think administrative costs, running about 23 percent, are out of hand.

My bottom line belief is that the health care medical insurance industry should be nonprofit in the United States. And the more I read about other countries, the more this view is supported in my own mind.

Needless to say, Feinstein has endorsed the proposal to scale back the industry’s anti-trust exemptions.

The USA Patriot Act was quickly pushed through Congress shortly after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, and the Times notes today that its “excessive powers” allowed for an “overly expansive snooping regime.” Although a few Senators — notably Russ Feingold (D-Wis.), Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) and, perhaps surprisingly, Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) — worked hard to rein in those excesses by trying to limit those powers only for use against people actually suspected of engaging in international terrorism, most senators, as revealed in today’s markup session, were convinced by closed-door briefings with the FBI and Justice Department that most of the surveillance authority in the Patriot Act should be renewed.

While the Times said the bill taking shape in the Senate allows for “excesses that contribute nothing to making America safer,” Feinstein this morning called that “dead wrong,” but based her reasoning on a classified briefing she could not discuss.

Feingold, however, who was also privy to that briefing, strongly disagreed. Objecting to “the overall tone of what’s happening in this legislation,” he said, “The New York Times is absolutely right, that this bill is moving in the wrong direction.”

Responding to Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s (D-Calif.) assurances that the bill, as proposed, is necessary and important based on classified information she’s received that can’t be shared with the American public, Specter demurred.

“We have moved a distance from where we were before, in requiring a foreign terror connection,” he said, noting that several provisions of the bill no longer require that. “In 2005, the bill was handled unanimously. The core of the bill required a connection with a foreign power. That’s really what we’re looking for here in the Patriot Act. When that requirement is taken away it seems to me it guts the structure of the Patriot Act. You have the provision of lone wolf, with no connection to a foreign power, which is the core of the patriots act. It hasn’t been used at all. It seems to me something this committee ought not rush to retain.”

As for “roving wiretaps,” Specter added that he opposed those back in 2001 because they failed to require the FBI to specify who they’re wiretapping. “The whole point of probable cause for search and seizure is probable cause with specificity,” said Specter. “Our committee ought to be more assertive as a guardian of separation of powers. This has a philosophical connection to what we’re doing on state secrets,” he said, referring to the state secrets privilege that the Justice Department has repeatedly asserted to dismiss lawsuits charging government wrongdoing. “Now all you have to do is have the executive branch assert state secrets and that closes the matter. … It’s still the executive branch, without judicial review to take a look.”

He continued, “I would hope this committee would be more assertive of the separation of powers under the Constitution.”

California Democratic Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer last Friday sent a letter to Democratic leaders claiming the fees would kill jobs in their state.

California is home to more medical device workers and companies than any other state. Our state is home to 1,300 medical technology firms, which create more than 112,000 related jobs. These California firms represent about 20 percent of total United States medical device sales and approximately one-third of the industry’s jobs.

The showdown highlights the primary struggle facing Democratic leaders trying to rein in medical spending to keep care affordable and federal programs sustainable. That is, the medical industrial complex has evolved into a $2.3 trillion-per-year colossus, and any proposed cuts are sure to get blasted by lawmakers trying to protect regional interests — even when those regional interests run counter to national interests.

Last week, the Finance Committee defeated Kyl’s amendment to eliminate the medical device fees altogether. But the saga is far from over. Indeed, Dow Jones is reporting today that the Advanced Medical Technology Association, the nation’s leading device lobbyist group, is in discussions with Baucus’s office about reducing the fees from $40 billion to $15 billion over 10 years.

“A deal might come within days,” Dow Jones says, citing unnamed industry sources.

“I very much regret the fact that the Republican side of the Intelligence Committee has chosen not to continue to participate in the Committee’s study and investigation into the detention and interrogation of high-value detainees. However, that study and investigation is being pursued, additional staff are being hired, and the Committee is continuing the work with all due diligence.”

For a not-yet-online CQ piece, Tim Starks reports that Feinstein’s Republican counterpart, Kit Bond (R-Mo.), says the GOP pullout comes in protest of Attorney General Eric Holder’s decision to investigate torture in the now-defunct Bush-era CIA “enhanced interrogation” program:

“Had Mr. Holder honored the pledge made by the president to look forward not backwards, we would still be active participants in the committee’s review,” Missouri Republican Christopher S. Bond, vice-chairman of the Senate panel, said in an e-mailed statement. “Instead, DOJ sent a loud and clear message that previous decisions to decline prosecution mean nothing and old criminal charges can be brought anytime against anyone — against these odds, what current or former CIA employee would be willing to gamble his freedom by answering the committee’s questions?”

By definition, then, the Senate panel will produce a partisan report. But Bond has just forfeited his right to complain about that.

“The documents released today provide evidence that the CIA detention and interrogation program exceeded its authority as follows:

· Beating a detainee in Afghanistan, who later died in custody, with a heavy flashlight;

· Threatening a detainee with a handgun and a power drill;

· Staging a mock execution;

· Threatening to kill a detainee’s family;

· Choking a detainee to the point of unconsciousness;

· Applying waterboarding in ways that beyond what the Office of Legal Counsel had authorized, and not informing OLC of how waterboarding was being done in practice prior to the Inspector General’s report.

The IG report also noted a case in which the interrogators at a ‘black site’ recommended ending the use of enhanced interrogation techniques on a detainee, but were overruled by officials at CIA headquarters and told to resume waterboarding the detainee.

I first learned of this and other IG reports, starting in September of 2006. I expressed significant concern with the program and introduced legislation in 2007 to limit CIA interrogations to techniques authorized by the Army Field Manual. This provision was passed by Congress in 2008, but was vetoed by President Bush. I reintroduced this legislation in January.

President Obama has committed to requiring that the CIA only use the proven and effective interrogation techniques authorized by the Army Field Manual, and I strongly agree with that position.

The Senate Intelligence Committee is conducting a comprehensive, bipartisan study of all aspects of CIA’s detention and interrogation program. This study includes how the program was created and operated, how it was briefed to the Congress and other parts of the Executive Branch, its compliance with guidance from the Department of Justice, and the information produced. The study is ongoing. We have reviewed thousands of documents on a number of high-value detainees, and will review the cases of all such detainees.

The Committee’s study will continue until we complete our work, regardless of any decision by Attorney General Holder on whether to proceed to a criminal investigation. I look forward to continued cooperation with our work from the CIA and the Administration.”

Note the open-endedness of her committee’s review.

“The first thing to remember is that the program has been canceled. It was fully briefed to the Senate Intelligence Committee, first by Director Panetta in June, and afterward through additional oversight.

The program was never briefed to the Congress before June despite a clear requirement in law to keep the intelligence committees ‘fully and currently informed.’ This was a sensitive program and had, in fact, gone beyond the simple planning stage.

It is clear to me that the failure to notify before now constituted a violation of law. That’s a big problem and it should never ever happen again. Every single intelligence operation and covert action must be briefed to the Congress. If they are not, that is a violation of the law.

While this is already the case, the Senate Intelligence Committee has included a provision in the Fiscal Year 2010 Intelligence Authorization bill that clearly states that there is no exception to the legal requirement to notify Congress.

While I will not confirm or deny the allegations in recent press articles, I have believed for a long time that the Intelligence Community is over-reliant on contractors to carry out its work. This is especially a problem when contractors are used to carry out activities that are inherently governmental.”

Like assassinating members of al-Qaeda! Also, unless I’m missing something, Feinstein has walked up to the water’s edge of calling the CIA’s lack of congressional notification on the program illegal, but this is the first time she’s crossed that particular threshold. (Though Feinstein has also come the closest of any senator to calling the program itself — not just the concealment of it — illegal.)

The tremendous number of sales in the first week of this program demonstrates that the CARS Act has succeeded in increasing new vehicle sales, but Congress needs this data in order to determine if the fleet modernization program delivered significant fuel economy gains and oil savings.

They have an ulterior motive. Even as Detroit’s defenders successfully pushed through legislation encouraging sales of new gus-guzzlers, Feinstein and Collins were among the critics urging that the purchased vehicles get better gas mileage in order to qualify for the thousands of dollars in cash vouchers. Along with Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), they have sponsored of a more environmentally minded cash for clunkers program.

They lost that fight, but considering the popularity of the program, they might have more leverage the second time around. Indeed, the defenders of the existing program can no longer fall back on the argument that lax eligibility is needed to encourage participation.

Earlier in the year, Detroit’s powerful defenders on Capitol Hill pushed through legislation that effectively allowed consumers to trade clunkers for new clunkers — a boon to the automakers and dealers who were having trouble selling larger vehicles, but hardly a recipe to reduce emissions in any meaningful way.

At least one member of the Michigan delegation, Sen. Carl Levin (D), is already urging additional funding for the program.

“We have been told by the White House that people can keep buying cars under the program until further notice,” Levin said in a statement Friday. “We don’t know how long it will last, so people should go to their car dealers now if they want to take advantage of the program.  We’re also going to seek additional funding to hopefully make the program last longer.”

But others are vowing that, if the program is to be extended, the eligible vehicles should get better gas mileage. Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine), who had pushed legislation hinging the cash subsidies on better fuel efficiencies, issued a statement yesterday vowing to fight additional funding unless some changes are made.

We believe that any extension of the ‘Cash for Clunkers’ program must go further in advancing the goals of better fuel efficiency and greater emissions reductions. We will not support any bill that does not meet these goals.

They have this in their favor: Levin and the other automaker defenders can no longer claim that eligibility thresholds have to be kept low to encourage participation.