Marcy Wheeler conducts an invaluable close reading of the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility report, released on Friday, and finds that the SERE psychologists James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen whom CIA contracted in 2001 to advise them on how to interrogate al-Qaeda detainees recommended a horrific technique:
The
Charlie Savage and Scott Shane have a great story today about U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies improperly spying on constitutionally protected activities of American citizens. Overcollection, as it’s euphemistically known in the intelligence business, has, unsurprisingly, occurred for years, despite official denials in the Bush administration. One American More…
The White House just announced the leadership of the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board: former Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), a big Obama supporter, and former Sen. David Boren (D-Okla.), a former intelligence committee chair and mentor of disastrous ex-CIA Director George Tenet. Their reactions, as per a White House release:
“I
In case you’re wondering, as I’ve been writing about former CIA Director George Tenet’s “enhanced interrogation” guidelines — and the place of “prolonged diapering” within them – I reached out to a representative for Tenet for comment, and was told that he’s not going to be talking. Perhaps that’s More…
Marcy Wheeler may have solved a mystery about the previously unacknowledged CIA “enhanced interrogation” technique of “prolonged diapering.” I wondered in my initial post where the CIA got the legal authorization for the technique from, as the 2004 CIA inspector general’s report on torture says that the CIA withdrew More…
The 2004 CIA inspector general’s report on torture says clearly that in 2002, the CIA proposed to the Justice Department the use of eleven “enhanced interrogation techniques.” Ten of them got the approval of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel in August 2002 in the infamous Jay More…
In a section of the 2004 CIA inspector general report about interrogation techniques that were used on detainees by the CIA but never approved by the Justice Department — including mock executions, blowing cigar smoke into someone’s face until he became ill, squeezing a detainee’s neck “to restrict the detainee’s More…
A few months ago I pointed to declassified references in the 2005 Office of Legal Counsel torture opinions to guidelines issued by former CIA Director George Tenet in January 2003 for the application of torture techniques. It turns out, according to the 2004 CIA inspector general’s report, that Tenet More…
Daphne’s already blown the kazoo and hung the streamers for today’s release of the 2004 CIA inspector general report on the agency’s use of torture “enhanced interrogation” techniques. We’ll be covering this throughout the day. But pay attention as well to what might not get released today: another More…
What do I mean when I say that the inspectors general report on warrantless surveillance shows a larger role for CIA in the post-9/11 surveillance efforts than has been previously disclosed? According to the report, CIA would prepare a threat briefing for President Bush justifying the need for More…
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