Post by unlawflcombatnt on Aug 6, 2014 23:02:39 GMT -6
from the New York Times
www.nytimes.com/2014/08/06/us/redactions-of-report-on-cia-stoke-ire.html?_r=1
Senator Denounces Redactions of Report on C.I.A. Detention Program
Aug 5, 2014
By MARK MAZZETTI
"The chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee said on Tuesday that heavy censorship by the Obama administration of her committee’s voluminous report on the C.I.A.’s detention program eliminates or obscures “key facts” buttressing the document’s conclusions, and pledged to fight for more of it to be declassified.
The statement by the chairwoman, Senator Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat, seemed to dim the prospects of the long-delayed report’s being released in the coming days. Ms. Feinstein said she was writing a letter to President Obama with a list of items she believes were improperly redacted, a list the officials said included some intelligence-gathering information and pseudonyms of C.I.A. officers.
Continue reading the main story
The fight could present problems for the Obama administration. On Friday, the president denounced the C.I.A.’s interrogation methods and pointed out that one of his first acts as president was the shuttering of the spy agency’s detention program. But further delays in releasing the report, and a perception that the White House is protecting the C.I.A., could be a blow to an image the president has cultivated as someone who opposed a program of torture. The redactions were made by intelligence agencies with the ultimate approval of the White House.
“The bottom line is that the United States must never again make the mistakes documented in this report,” Ms. Feinstein said. “I believe the best way to accomplish that is to make public our thorough documentary history of the C.I.A.’s program.”
Senator Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat and chairman of the Armed Services Committee, called the redactions “totally unacceptable” and said there were multiple instances where information was redacted that had already been disclosed in his committee’s 2009 report on detention.
Several officials said that one point of contention is the report’s use of C.I.A. pseudonyms to identify officers involved in the interrogations. The Obama administration has redacted the names on the premise that, even though they are not real names, the information could be used to unearth the identities of the officers.
Another dispute is over the redaction of other intelligence information not obtained from interrogations that spy agencies gathered in the hunt for operatives of Al Qaeda. Officials said that Ms. Feinstein believes that deleting this information undermines one of the report’s main conclusions that the brutal interrogations were not essential to thwarting terrorist plots.
“If you redact the information about those other intelligence-gathering means, it cripples the report,” said one official with knowledge of the report’s conclusions."
www.nytimes.com/2014/08/06/us/redactions-of-report-on-cia-stoke-ire.html?_r=1
Senator Denounces Redactions of Report on C.I.A. Detention Program
Aug 5, 2014
By MARK MAZZETTI
"The chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee said on Tuesday that heavy censorship by the Obama administration of her committee’s voluminous report on the C.I.A.’s detention program eliminates or obscures “key facts” buttressing the document’s conclusions, and pledged to fight for more of it to be declassified.
The statement by the chairwoman, Senator Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat, seemed to dim the prospects of the long-delayed report’s being released in the coming days. Ms. Feinstein said she was writing a letter to President Obama with a list of items she believes were improperly redacted, a list the officials said included some intelligence-gathering information and pseudonyms of C.I.A. officers.
Continue reading the main story
The fight could present problems for the Obama administration. On Friday, the president denounced the C.I.A.’s interrogation methods and pointed out that one of his first acts as president was the shuttering of the spy agency’s detention program. But further delays in releasing the report, and a perception that the White House is protecting the C.I.A., could be a blow to an image the president has cultivated as someone who opposed a program of torture. The redactions were made by intelligence agencies with the ultimate approval of the White House.
“The bottom line is that the United States must never again make the mistakes documented in this report,” Ms. Feinstein said. “I believe the best way to accomplish that is to make public our thorough documentary history of the C.I.A.’s program.”
Senator Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat and chairman of the Armed Services Committee, called the redactions “totally unacceptable” and said there were multiple instances where information was redacted that had already been disclosed in his committee’s 2009 report on detention.
Several officials said that one point of contention is the report’s use of C.I.A. pseudonyms to identify officers involved in the interrogations. The Obama administration has redacted the names on the premise that, even though they are not real names, the information could be used to unearth the identities of the officers.
Another dispute is over the redaction of other intelligence information not obtained from interrogations that spy agencies gathered in the hunt for operatives of Al Qaeda. Officials said that Ms. Feinstein believes that deleting this information undermines one of the report’s main conclusions that the brutal interrogations were not essential to thwarting terrorist plots.
“If you redact the information about those other intelligence-gathering means, it cripples the report,” said one official with knowledge of the report’s conclusions."