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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

#91

Post by rdtsc »

bradleyjg wrote: post #79
willscott wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The saving grace is that we have a country that was able to admit that it did this. For me, that's hope that we're still in a position to learn from our wrongs, and that the checks-and-balances are still somewhat in-tact.

We haven't apologized, we haven't made restitution, and we sure as heck haven't prosecuted the guilty (as required by the convention against torture). I'm struggling to see any saving grace.

Good point, and we might even be in worse position if action is not taken. If there is lack of outrage, it will send a message up the chain that "this is not that bad, nobody really minded this much, let's use harsher techniques next time".

Re: US Senate Report on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program

#92

Post by lmm »

phkahler wrote: post #22
lotharbot wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the first paragraph makes it clear: "On April 3, 2014, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence voted to send the Findings and Conclusions and the Executive Summary of its final Study on the CIA's Detention and Interrogation Program to the President for declassification and subsequent public release"... EDIT: also the fact that it's stamped "Unclassified" everywhere. If it was stamped as still classified and had b…

Wait what? >>EDIT: also the fact that it's stamped "Unclassified" everywhere. If it was stamped as still classified and had been leaked, anyone with a clearance would risk losing it by reading the file. So a person with clearance can't read a leaked classified document? I'm confused, more explanation please ;-) This IS sounding vaguely familiar in some way, but I don't get it. EDIT: Thanks for all the replies. Also,…

> So a person with clearance can't read a leaked classified document?

Yup. It's still classified. Otherwise anyone who was caught reading a document they weren't supposed to could just say "my friend gave it to me" or "it was leaked on the internet somewhere".

Re: US Senate Report on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program

#93

Post by ryanmarsh »

Loughla wrote: post #10

Why do they insist on saying 'enhanced interrogation technique' instead of torture? Even when it obviously means torture: "Another senior CIA officer stated that COBALT was itself an enhanced interrogation technique." When talking about a physical place. That is so blatant word replacement that I find it hard to take it seriously.

The media is saying the methods were "far more brutal" than previously thought, which is a gross understatement.

Re: US Senate Report on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program

#94

Post by ep103 »

debacle wrote: post #49

Fellow parents, how do you teach or plan to teach your kids about this? I was discussing this with my son last night, but I really couldn't explain to him the prejudice and fear that people use to justify these types of acts, or the "otherness" that the perpetrators try to construct around the victims in the media. It's just not something he's experienced yet. There's no way to put it into context.

That's because there wasn't any prejudice or fear that warranted this, ever. IIRC, in Dick Cheney's autobiography, he states that he was a driving force behind pushing the intelligence community to torture their detainees. And he states that he did so "because if we started torturing people, no one would call the republican party weak on terrorism." He didn't have to go that extra mile.

That was it, that was the justification. Once reports and pictures started coming out, the Murdoch press ran stories that "enhanced investigation techniques" were responsible for foiling various terror threats, despite official proclamations and studies at the time saying otherwise. And then the press claimed it was a partisan issue, because that's what they always do, without any regard to what the issue actually was.

So I'm going to go out on a limb here, and say that in my personal opinion, the only story to be heard here is that in the real world, evil is defined as actions actions taken in self-interest that harm others (Dick Cheney's actions in this story, as well as the people who obeyed those directives). That while the press made it seem like 50% of people were pro-torture, the press never, never, accurately shows the actual viewpoints of the people, not to mention how morally bankrupt and unreliable this shows the national press to be. And one last point about how many people were convinced by news reports that since these things were only being used against bad people, it was okay, and how that should be a lesson to others and the future... and how many times this has happened this exact same way in the past.

Re: US Senate Report on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program

#95

Post by tosser-001 »

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 infliction of unbearable pain with no expectation of actionable information being extracted.)

* If the techniques were in fact of no value (which the CIA disputes) then I would of course not support their continued use. I don't support the infliction of 'needless' pain or suffering. If they were providing useful information then I have no ethical or moral problem with them.

Re: US Senate Report on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program

#96

Post by lotharbot »

It seems to me like there are four key findings here:

(1) the CIA did some truly horrific stuff to detainees -- wallings, waterboardings, sleep deprivation, threatening their families, etc. (Specific quotes are in rdtsc's comment at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8723834 ).

(2) the CIA systematically lied about and hid information about what they were doing from other parts of the government -- from the Senate Intelligence Committee, the FBI, the State Department, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, US ambassadors in countries that housed detention facilities, etc.

(3) the CIA didn't provide its operatives with training in interrogation until months after the program started, didn't have facilities in place until just shortly before they took custody of their first prisoner, had very little oversight even within the CIA itself (see finding #12, page 17 of the pdf), and otherwise seemed to be flying by the seat of their pants. So they weren't even making decisions in a coherent, systematic fashion.

(4) all of this horrific, lied-about stuff... didn't even work. They weren't saving lives, and they had plenty of reason to know (before, during, and after) that the techniques wouldn't/weren't/didn't accomplish anything of value. So even firm believers in "the ends justify the means" don't have a leg to stand on here.

Re: US Senate Report on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program

#97

Post by gknoy »

lotharbot wrote: post #50
phkahler wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait what? >>EDIT: also the fact that it's stamped "Unclassified" everywhere. If it was stamped as still classified and had been leaked, anyone with a clearance would risk losing it by reading the file. So a person with clearance can't read a leaked classified document? I'm confused, more explanation please ;-) This IS sounding vaguely familiar in some way, but I don't get it. EDIT: Thanks for all the replies. Also,…

If you have a clearance you're expected to follow proper protocols in accessing classified information. Reading something via a leak is not the proper protocol. Think of it as analogous to being given a "gift" that you know is stolen. Even though you didn't steal it, you know it actually belongs to someone else, so you shouldn't accept it.

If it's leaked, you're not allowed to read it.

If it's re-classified as Unclassified, you're allowed to read it, as it's no longer classified material.

Re: US Senate Report on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program

#98

Post by blocktuw »

dragonwriter wrote: post #83
sliverstorm wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of these things are clearly off the deep end. But some of them, especially threats, seem like pretty basic/standard interrogation... There are many techniques, but it seems like we have forgotten it is fundamentally manipulative and abusive. I mean, we are surprised to find that threats are used? What?

> I mean, we are surprised to find that threats are used? We are, if not surprised, rightfully offended that our government does not obey its own laws, which define and punish torture -- acts "intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody or physical control", where "severe physical or mental pain or…

> Lack of heat at the facility likely contributed to the death of a detainee.

Causing the death of a detainee is not a threat. Perhaps negligence which should have consequences for those who were responsible for this person while in their custody.

Re: US Senate Report on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program

#99

Post by dragonwriter »

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.

Torture has been shown to be a reasonably good (though not always effective) means of getting people to tell torturers things that they think the torturers want to hear -- whatever the tortured person thinks is most likely to lead to the present cessation of the torture.

Its also been shown to be a fairly poor technique, compared to other alternatives, to get accurate, actionable information.

As the Senate report itself notes, this was the conclusion of the CIA's own work on interrogation techniques prior to 9/11, which was disregarded in the aftermath of 9/11.

Re: US Senate Report on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program

#100

Post by tormeh »

debacle wrote: post #49

Fellow parents, how do you teach or plan to teach your kids about this? I was discussing this with my son last night, but I really couldn't explain to him the prejudice and fear that people use to justify these types of acts, or the "otherness" that the perpetrators try to construct around the victims in the media. It's just not something he's experienced yet. There's no way to put it into context.

I'm only joking, but wouldn't seeing a SAW movie with them and explaining that this kind of violence is perceived as justified against certain groups suffice?
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