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US Senate Report on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program

intelligence.senate.gov

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Re: US Senate Report on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program

#191

Post by tracker1 »

tosser-001 wrote: post #95
rdtsc wrote: post #25

> Interrogation techniques such as slaps and "wallings" (slamming detainees against a wall) were used in combination, frequently concurrent with sleep deprivation and nudity. Records do not support CIA representations that the CIA initially used an "an open, non-threatening approach," or that interrogations began with the "least coercive technique possible" and escalated to more coercive techniques only as necessary.…

* I would never support the use of these techniques against soldiers of a legitimate state or other criminal actors. * The perpetrators of the 9-11 attacks to me represent a completely different sort of threat than has ever been encountered - which legitimized the use of torture (though to be honest, the sorts of techniques outlined in the report don't really sound like what I would classify as "torture"; i.e., the i…

We went on to foreign soil, and abducted the prisoners in question. It's not like we found them sneaking across our borders with bombs... We have a legal declaration of war on "terror" ... all enemy combatants in such a declaration are POW, regardless of their status in a standing army.

I have a fairly flexible moral code as far as even torture is concerned... this goes beyond what I would consider appropriate in any sense of the word.

Re: US Senate Report on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program

#192

Post by DominikD »

mikeyouse wrote: post #16
theandrewbailey wrote: post #9

If anyone has senators on the Intelligence Committee (like Feinstein D-CA), write or call your senator and tell them that they made the right choice. Members: http://www.intelligence.senate.gov/memberscurrent.html

Not all members of the committee deserve your appreciation.. > The 6,000-page report was researched and written by Democratic staff members of the Senate Intelligence Committee between 2009 and 2013 after committee Republicans chose not to participate. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/10/us/politics/q-and-a-about-...

AFAIK Susan Collins did participate. See here:

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/12/09/live-coverage-...

"Given the authors – Committee Democrats along with (...) Susan Collins (R)"

Re: US Senate Report on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program

#193

Post by w1ntermute »

cryoshon wrote: post #124

A few things: The Republicans have issued a rebuttal. I assume this means they support torture. I hope this dissuades some of their remaining voter base from continuing to support them. Clapper has issued a rebuttal, claiming that the report isn't neutral. I assume he also supports torture. Not sure that he has any credibility left after being caught on the record lying to congress, but whatever. The White House atte…

> The Republicans have issued a rebuttal. I assume this means they support torture. I hope this dissuades some of their remaining voter base from continuing to support them.

Their base loves this sort of thing. You're talking about some of the most uncivilized/old-fashioned people in America - rural/old people. They grew up in a different era. It seems like all we can do is wait for them to die out.

Re: US Senate Report on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program

#194

Post by dash2 »

gadders wrote: post #170
rdtsc wrote: post #25

> Interrogation techniques such as slaps and "wallings" (slamming detainees against a wall) were used in combination, frequently concurrent with sleep deprivation and nudity. Records do not support CIA representations that the CIA initially used an "an open, non-threatening approach," or that interrogations began with the "least coercive technique possible" and escalated to more coercive techniques only as necessary.…

> I have no words. This stuff would make Gestapo, KGB and Stasi proud. Godwin's Law? As far as I know there were no mass machine-gunnings, people hanged with piano wire or actually any people tortured to death. A lot of the techniques listed are pretty much what the US (and UK) army use on their own troops as part of escape and evasion training.

You are mistaken. From the report:

On November --, 2002, adetainee who had been held partially nude and chained to a concrete floor died from suspected hypothermia at the facility. [camp COBALT]

Re: US Senate Report on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program

#195

Post by lotharbot »

szierk wrote: post #143

How can the average person combat this? Does anyone have recommendations for organizations to support? I'm honestly at a complete loss for where to start. edit: removed a comment on this article getting flagged.

There are probably two factors at play here:

(1) somewhat counterintuitively, HN penalizes stories that have a large number of comments compared to votes. It's typical for a post with ~300 upvotes to have under 100 comments; you can see several examples on the front page right now. This thread has nearly 200 comments. Having significantly more than the expected number of comments, and especially deep comment threads, is often an indicator of a flamewar, so the algorithm penalizes stories that meet that pattern.

(2) flags. Not "omg I support torture" flags, but "this isn't hacker news, it's mainstream media" flags. This story is very much on the bubble for me -- it's obviously something being covered in mainstream news, but this is a link to the actual report and people are discussing the findings in detail. (I have not flagged it, but I understand why others would.)

[EDIT: this comment was posted in response to a since-removed question about this story's position on the front page. I have left it because I believe the information is helpful.]

Re: US Senate Report on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program

#196

Post by szierk »

twoodfin wrote: post #164
szierk wrote: post #143

How can the average person combat this? Does anyone have recommendations for organizations to support? I'm honestly at a complete loss for where to start. edit: removed a comment on this article getting flagged.

Wonder who we have to thank for that. As we're not supposed to comment as to why we flagged a particular article, it's probably not productive to complain about flagging in the comments.

You're right. I've edited the comment to reflect that.

Re: US Senate Report on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program

#197

Post by ZanyProgrammer »

Someone1234 wrote: post #146
ZanyProgrammer wrote: post #36

Too bad this only covers the CIA and not the military. I was a 97E (interrogator) in the Army during both Bush administrations, who was lucky to never be deployed. I bet the military also has lots and lots of sins that need to be uncovered.

If I may ask, were you trained in the stuff discussed in this report?

Nope. But then again, what goes on downrange can be very different than what goes on in the schoolhouse.

Re: US Senate Report on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program

#198

Post by DanBC »

tormeh wrote: post #75
rqebmm wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's been shown that torture is among the least effective way of extracting information from unwilling informants. http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/an_fbi_interrogator_on_the_...

What is the most effective? Anyway, that's really counter-intuitive. I mean, I guess I could deal with pain, but losing body parts, skin or eyes? I would talk pretty fast.

We know that people confess to crimes they didn't commit - even if they're not being tortured.

http://nymag.com/news/crimelaw/68715/

Re: US Senate Report on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program

#199

Post by sd8f9iu »

cryoshon wrote: post #124

A few things: The Republicans have issued a rebuttal. I assume this means they support torture. I hope this dissuades some of their remaining voter base from continuing to support them. Clapper has issued a rebuttal, claiming that the report isn't neutral. I assume he also supports torture. Not sure that he has any credibility left after being caught on the record lying to congress, but whatever. The White House atte…

>"The Republicans have issued a rebuttal. I assume this means they support torture."

>"Clapper has issued a rebuttal, claiming that the report isn't neutral. I assume he also supports torture."

>"The White House attempted to keep this report from coming out...I assume that the White House supports torture..."

Politics is a dirty, complex game. If you treat every news event as black and white like this, you will form many extremist positions very quickly. Obama, for example, banned torture via executive order when he took office. Did you cry that he was "against torture" when that came out?

Re: US Senate Report on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program

#200

Post by eslaught »

I think we should be a little more amazed that this report is available at all---an through internal channels at that. While we're all bashing the CIA for what they've done (and are right to do so), we should also appreciate that this is also at some level an instance of government working "properly": one branch of government audited another branch, found that there had been misconduct, and was able to publish a report showing what had been done wrong. This is not the end of the road---we still need to fix the problems and prevent them from happening again---but publicly acknowledging the problems is a massive first step.

Before we all jump on the bandwagon to paint the USA as the next major authoritarian regime, ask yourselves the question: would this report ever get published in North Korea, China, or the former USSR? Frankly, I can't imagine it. This report proves that the USA might not be better than any of those countries with regard to these events... but at least it appears that the USA has the guts to acknowledge publicly its mistakes.

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