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Senate Report Says CIA Misled Government About Interrogation Methods
mrspoonsi sends this news from the Washington Post:
"A report by the Senate Intelligence Committee concludes that the CIA misled the government and the public about aspects of its brutal interrogation program for years — concealing details about the severity of its methods, overstating the significance of plots and prisoners, and taking credit for critical pieces of intelligence that detainees had in fact surrendered before they were subjected to harsh techniques. The report, built around detailed chronologies of dozens of CIA detainees, documents a long-standing pattern of unsubstantiated claims as agency officials sought permission to use — and later tried to defend — excruciating interrogation methods that yielded little, if any, significant intelligence, according to U.S. officials who have reviewed the document. ... At the secret prison, Baluchi endured a regime that included being dunked in a tub filled with ice water. CIA interrogators forcibly kept his head under the water while he struggled to breathe and beat him repeatedly, hitting him with a truncheon-like object and smashing his head against a wall, officials said. As with Abu Zubaida and even Nashiri, officials said, CIA interrogators continued the harsh treatment even after it appeared that Baluchi was cooperating."
If it's obvious they were assaulting people without cause, why haven't they been arrested, prosecuted and thrown in jail?
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
This shakes my world view to its very core.
Also, whoever decided to auto-play audio on Slashdot should be fired.
What doesn't kill you only delays the inevitable
Cowards. They're not willing to call it what it is, because they're still the Establishment Media, and don't want to lose access to the government people who are their big information sources.
At least National Public Radio has the excuse that they're directly funded by the government (and "viewers like you", and grants from Exxon, Archer Daniels Midland, some recent movie, etc.) - it was 10 years after Gitmo before I first heard them use the T-word in a news story; before that it had only been guests on Terry Gross's interview shows (and Terry herself.)
Don't let the right-wingers tell you that either of these are "liberal" media.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
What Would Jack Bauer Say?
Ask them about their Medical Torture Program!!!!!!
Dear CIA:
What is your opinion of Obamacare?
signed,
A Concerned Voter
If the reward for cooperating is torture and more torture, why cooperate? At least keeping silent (or lying in ways not easily checked) can be a form of revenge.
with people totally disconnected from the consequences of their actions, driven by some idea and illusion in their head doing the "right thing", not to use he term "pervert", which in fact this is coming from.....
They're looking for the "big fish", the "kingpins". The focus on catching the "kingpin" works equally badly for informants in drug cases.
I'd like to teach the world to sing
In perfect harmony.
I'd like to hold it in my arms
And keep it company.
"Sunshine, lollypops and ..."
rainbows
Why are we still fighting crap like this? "Those guys ..." are not people we associate with willingly, yes? So who's letting them get away with this? Somebody shoot the fsckers already! It's self-defence!
"Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit
Due to our own actions, the terrorists won yet another round...not a cry I'd championed previously.
The future, scratch that, the present is looking really bleak now that the average civilian can expect to be spied upon, searches and home invasions are being done without cause, due process is ignored, travel is restricted, "Homeland Security" are targeting civilians for desiring sexual contact with minors, and those declared enemies of the state are outright tortured, everything that was considered "evil" about the opposition when I was a child (be it the Third Reich or the Soviet Union) is currently taking place in the United States.
The only thing left is to disarm the populace to prevent revolt, and institute concentration or labor camps.
I never imagined I'd grow up to be embarrassed by my government and everything it stands for. Is fear next?
People sold their soul and got nothing in exchange. I'd rather have been the martyr than the inquisitor, and that's saying a lot.
Where does "Coca Cola" come into it?
"There are cases of murderers where clear evidence has been discarded on the flimsiest of judicial pretexts"
You clearly don't understand the (ostensible) purpose of rights and US law. If you don't protect some who are guilty, you risk many more who are innocent.
Although you may be trolling, as your suggestion that people who screw up a case be tried is absurd. Sometimes mistakes will happen, naturally. Now I definitely feel that police and judicial officials should not be treated differently than regular citizens, and should be held accountable when violating the law (unlike the current situation with police beatings and murders), but it would be impossible to be a cop if you were charged with serious crimes anytime an investigation or arrest didn't go ideally.
I hope this an April Fools joke. Otherwise, this is a BAD sign.
We would have to start with Bush and Cheney and the chain of command that obeyed orders. The proper charge might be murder as some of the people died of the torture that was inflicted upon them. Just as we executed German and Japanese war criminals we need to do the same with American officials. Naturally the low ranked guards were the scapegoats and they could not have said no as easily as those above them in the chain of command. Further we turned prisoners over to other nations with full knowledge that unlimited horrors including death would be applied to some of our prisoners. Use the same paint brush that the "too big to fail" jerks received. We are providing absolute proof that American values are a fraud and a falsehood displayed to the entire world including our own citizens. It is a matter of class and race. Certain people are exempt from all law in the US. Bush is one of them. I'm getting old and with luck I will not be alive to see the consequences when the public finally goes into rebellion or supports a foreign power invading this nation. I do think we are building towards an awful rebellion and chaos.
I don't think he's a troll, because this is something I've thought about myself.
Maybe not get charged with the same crime, but throwing out evidence is stupid. If we know somebody say, committed murder, letting them go to punish the police for violating the rules is mindbogglingly stupid. No, what you need to do is use the evidence that was gathered to get the murderer off the streets, then you try the officer for violating the rights of the suspect.
I realize that there are some problems with this, mostly revolving around how difficult it is to try cops for anything. But right now the punishment that the cop faces is... not getting the conviction. IF he's caught. Of course cops are going to risk it once and a while!
The Washington Post is still too spineless to call it torture.
Need Mercedes parts ?
Well, just to play devil's (!!!) advocate, because you don't *know* Baluchi is cooperating as fully as he might be.
Ammar Al-Baluchi was unquestionably involved with moving money and goods around for Al Qaeda and was clearly involved with helping many of the 9/11 hijackers. Although that does not necessarily mean he was an active *member* of Al Qaeda or knew exactly what the 9/11 hijackers were up to, he'd have to be remarkably incurious not to know something was up. And he was captured with correspondence that was destined for Osama bin Laden.
So this is a person who, even if he had no specific knowledge of imminent attacks, knows a lot of useful things. But that actually poses a challenge for interrogators. He can give them an impressive amount of useful stuff while holding back even *more* useful stuff.
But one thing is certain: if he *had* known more important stuff, it didn't come out under torture. Nor did torture produce *anything* useful that couldn't be produced using different techniques. And now Americans -- servicemen, agents, and innocent bystandanders -- face an increased threat of torture throughout the world at the hands of people who figure if America does it, Americans should get a taste of it too.
It's important not to be too glib about dismissing torture, because in the future we're going to find ourselves in situations where it seems like a pretty good idea. And the person we're thinking of torturing may be a very bad person -- I don't think it's unreasonable to characterize Al-Baruchi's crimes as "heinous". But if ever torture was going to break the back of an enemy it would have done so with al Qaeda after 9/11.
Well, we tried it and it didn't work. What *did* work was ordinary interrogation and intelligence tradecraft. Which should come as no surprise. We spent the 19th and 20th C perfecting those approaches, and the idea that we could do better by tearing a page out of the medieval playbook should, in hindsight, seem ridiculous.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
but throwing out evidence is stupid.
No, it's not. Freedom is more important than safety, and not allowing illegal evidence is a pretty good (Though it still doesn't stop them from using other tricks.) way of preventing some government abuses, as it doesn't matter if they're willing to risk punishment or send others to be the fall guys.
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Of course, this doesn't mean that the people who obtained the evidence illegally shouldn't be punished. That should happen also, to make it even more effective.
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Does "misled" mean the same as lying about CIA torture methods?
I disagree with that as well.
We are willing to sacrifice a certain amount of freedom for safety, or we'd all live in Somolia. I don't have the freedom to punch you, or dig up the highway. It's all a question of where we draw the line.
That said, it's not even the point. Even if we value freedom to a very high degree, the information has already been uncovered. I simply think that we should treat it as primarily evidence of the violation of the suspect's rights. And like any other piece of evidence, it can also be used to prosecute other crimes.
Punishing the police by punishing ourselves just seems counterproductive. If we can generate the same punishing force without hurting ourselves, isn't that better?
And then you end up with cops with martyr complexes willing to go to jail for two years to nail a criminal without due process. It allows for a perverse interest to break the law to uphold the law. Even if the punishment is the same as the criminal receives (cop gets death sentence for breaking due process in mass-murder case), there are some who would do it. Better to disallow the evidence.
We are willing to sacrifice a certain amount of freedom for safety, or we'd all live in Somolia.
You are not referring to fundamental freedoms. If you are, do not say "we." I am not willing to sacrifice fundamental freedoms for safety; that just leads to things such as the TSA, the NSA surveillance, DUI checkpoints, etc. Even if those things were effective, they would still be absolutely intolerable.
That said, it's not even the point. Even if we value freedom to a very high degree, the information has already been uncovered.
It *is* the point. If we want to make it less desirable for the government to break the law, their ability to use illegal evidence must be severely curtailed. Merely punishing them will not prevent the problem as much as is necessary. It's better that many guilty people get away than one innocent person be harassed by the government illegally.
Punishing the police by punishing ourselves just seems counterproductive.
I'm all for defending individual liberties, and that's why I think illegal evidence should be tossed. This is one aspect of our system that I have no problem with.
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This isn't so much a war on terror; its a war OF terror. Where the americans arrest, torture and release their possible enemies.
If you choose A or B, then sure it is. Over 98% do. It couldn't be more democratic.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
As a simple matter of pragmatism in primate politics, disgusting as what Bushco did is I don't blame Obama. No, and I mean no, US president is going to set a precedent of investigating and potentially arresting the preceding administration's cabinet. That sets an extremely dangerous precedent that's lethally corrosive to the normal succession of power expected in a modern Democracy. It's why Ford pardoned Nixon, and why Bushco knew they would get away with it.
A somewhat smaller scale example would be if the GOP trumps up some excuse to impeach Obama, thereby (since two in a row is a pattern) setting the precedent that every future Dem president can expect an impeachment trial. That this has not occurred indicates that Obama is either cleaner than a cleanroom or covered in more teflon than Michael Jackson...
Plus, to hear the teabaggers tell it Obama is quite literally worse than Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin and Chairman Mao taking turns murdering baby American Eagles because... reasons. Imagine if he actually went and had his predecessor arrested.
If we allow prosecutions to succeed on the strength of illegal evidence, we allow a perverse incentive to continue gathering evidence illegally. It has to be perfectly clear that illegally obtained evidence might as well not exist. Otherwise we end up at a point where your rights get violated at the first whiff of suspicion (however unfounded) and nobody ever pays because it never goes to trial.
Add in that convicting a cop will require at least proof beyond reasonable doubt (presuming the prosecutor doesn't just find an excuse not to pursue the matter). In practice, the police still (for reasons that escape me) still get an extra benefit of the doubt. Because of that, we would see abuses run rampant with practically no convictions.
Public trust of the courts, prosecutors, and cops is already falling fast, If we start letting them profit from criminal activity, it will get worse fast.
If you don't want to see murderers go free, hold the police's feet to the fire. If they never violate people's rights, nobody will ever go free because of thrown out evidence.
In cases where a cop plants evidence, he absolutely should face whatever sentence the defendant would get.
At the least, termination should be considered. After all their job is to catch the guilty legally and if evidence is getting tossed because they violated people's legal rights, they clearly suck at their job.
Its seems like different factions of contractors (interesting backgrounds, citizenships), varied control over US gov/mil ranks and location allowed for legal advice outside the expected:
Request more FBI experts who could help, wanted to help and had years of real US legal expertise.
Many nations tried hard to move beyond legal torture after the 1975 ++ Helsinki Accords. In 2014 the final US gov reports will be historically interesting when released.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Torture only works for confessions of things you already knew for sure. Then you can force someone to give up and confess. But as an investigative method, it is just unproductive. If you don't know what the suspect knows, how can you tell if he reveals something of value? And how many not-so-bad guys came under torture because of misleading statements, produced more misleading statements (as they didn't know shit), but when they were released they bore a grudge against their torturers and had firsthand knowledge of their structure, mentality, inner workings and locations?
If the reward for cooperating is torture and more torture, why cooperate? At least keeping silent (or lying in ways not easily checked) can be a form of revenge.
It's very digusting behavior given that the formation of English law whence America gets many of its concepts of rights. Torture was recognized as ineffective in the 1300's because it works too well, anyone will confess to anything. Here's an illustrated guide for you and yours demonstrating why the CIA practices can't yield justice. The threat of torture is meant as an example to others who go against the will of the CIA, it is effective as a threat, and those imprisoned are doomed to suffer as examples to the others, not as a means of protecting anyone's freedoms.
I think part of the problem is that there is still a section of American society today who "already know for sure" that all Muslims are terrorists. And around 2002 / 2003 there were many, many more who thought this way.
What's not really democratic about that?
How inappropriate to call this planet Earth, when clearly it is Ocean.
They stopped using cocaine at the beginning of the 20th century. It was still legal to import, and sell at that time.
He tried to kill me with a forklift!
It's pretty clear that we don't know who all of the hijackers were. A number seem to have used false or stolen passports (since those people have turned up alive). The FBI seems happy to stick with the story they've got though.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
And you know for sure they're not?
This is 1400+ years of what Islam is about
All of them? Yeah, I know for sure that not all Muslims are terrorists.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
Look, I don't mind that we disagree on this. I just don't agree with your arguments here. You're jumping from "punish the government (or police) such that they won't break the law" to "You MUST use this method!" You're not actually telling me why you think my method is worse.
Maybe not get charged with the same crime, but throwing out evidence is stupid. If we know somebody say, committed murder, letting them go to punish the police for violating the rules is mindbogglingly stupid. No, what you need to do is use the evidence that was gathered to get the murderer off the streets, then you try the officer for violating the rights of the suspect.
So we should use the evidence but punish the person who obtained it. At least we won't be sending a mixed message.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
If somebody is willing to throw away their career and go to jail for a few years in order to 'nail' a criminal, I think you need to stop and think long and hard about what person they're trying to hit.
If anybody else broke into the criminal's house and found a bunch of evidence of wrongdoing, we'd accept the evidence. I just don't see why we should treat the police any different.
You're missing my point. Violating the rights is a crime, it's not a question of whether it goes to trial. I recognize the practical problems inherent in that, but in my imagined system they would be charged for that. Right now the same incentive exists - if nothing goes to trial, illegal evidence doesn't matter, does it. Hell, there have been news stories here on slashdot about the DEA laundering evidence to hide the illegal nature of its collection.
No mixed message at all. Evidence collected about one crime (the violation of rights) can be used in another (murder investigation). Just like the evidence collected about one crime (theft) can be used in another (murder investigation).
No mixed message at all. Evidence collected about one crime (the violation of rights) can be used in another (murder investigation). Just like the evidence collected about one crime (theft) can be used in another (murder investigation).
I see. So you think if you are falsely accused of murder and the police beat a confession out of you anyway, that confession should still be allowed as evidence at your trial. Interesting.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
Right. Because the police wiretapping you illegally or following your car illegally or entering your home illegally is /exactly/ the same as battery. Thanks for clearing that up.
Right, in a slightly less sarcastic tone, let me point out that yes, it should be evidence at your trial. "Ladies and Gent of the Juror, here we present evidence that our client was assaulted by police and forced to give an illegal confession. This of course has no legal standing, but shows the incompetence and lack of professional conduct of the prosecutors."
And of course it would figure largely into the officer's trial.
The DEA evidence laundering exists exactly because the courts haven't insisted on going back and releasing every last person convicted on laundered evidence. That would put a stop to it right quick. After that, THEN start leveling charges on specific people who can be proven guilty.
Instead, we have the courts pretending they didn't see the news reports and prosecutors, despite the bit of chest thumping they did for show, seem to have no actual interest in filing charges.
havent you seen beta?
Who logs in to gdm? Not I, said the duck.
You're jumping from "punish the government (or police) such that they won't break the law" to "You MUST use this method!"
Since freedom and making sure innocent people aren't harassed is what's most important to me, it is perfectly natural for me to vehemently defend this practice.
You're not actually telling me why you think my method is worse.
I already told you a few posts back. There will be plenty of individuals who would act as martyrs and disregard the punishment. People who feel like they're stopping Bad Guys can sometimes go to any lengths to get them put in prison, whether they're innocent or not. So we'd end up with more innocent people harassed, and regardless of any 'benefits', that is unacceptable to me.
Just make sure the cops follow the law and no evidence will be discarded.
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Right. Because the police wiretapping you illegally or following your car illegally or entering your home illegally is /exactly/ the same as battery. Thanks for clearing that up.
You never specified what illegal things the cops might do to obtain evidence against a person. I understood your position to be that if evidence is obtained illegally, it should still be admissible at trial. I think that is a really bad idea, so I came up with a scenario that seemed to fit your position (police obtaining evidence illegally) that would show it's absurdity. I think I accomplished that. Not everyone brought to trial is guilty. Evidence obtained illegally should absolutely not be admissible for the very reason that it was obtained illegally, regardless of the punishment to the officer.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
Right, in a slightly less sarcastic tone, let me point out that yes, it should be evidence at your trial. "Ladies and Gent of the Juror, here we present evidence that our client was assaulted by police and forced to give an illegal confession. This of course has no legal standing, but shows the incompetence and lack of professional conduct of the prosecutors."
And of course it would figure largely into the officer's trial.
I know this is just a thought experiment, and that you understand that there are problems with having fruit of the poisoned tree allowed as evidence. I think that as this has played out we have seen why that is not a good idea. Law enforcement must play by the rules. And if they don't, their efforts should be in vain. The exclusionary principle exists for a very good reason. If I rob a bank, I should not get to keep the money as long as I do jail time. Likewise, if an officer of the law breaks the law to obtain evidence, they should not get to keep that evidence.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
I really don't care about your imagined system. I have to live in this world.
Assume a police officer does something illegal while gathering evidence. Who's going to prosecute? The county attorney (or whatever) wants to stay on the good side of the police, and has no incentive other than the highly unreliable one of wanting justice to prosecute. Moreover, the prosecutor needs to show that there is no reasonable doubt that this particular police officer committed this particular illegal action in order to convict, and that's a hard thing to do when the investigators available don't want to build a case.
If the courts toss illegally gathered evidence, police find that illegally gathering evidence doesn't work, so they start behaving in a mostly legal manner. After a while, the courts don't have to toss out much evidence, because everybody learns.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
OK, so who's on trial? If the police are going to beat a confession out of the guy, they'll also be willing to make it hard to identify them. The interrogating officer will throw a blanket on the suspect, not breaking the law, leaves the room for a feigned bathroom break, and then unidentified police beat the guy badly.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
I like to pretend that it doesn't exist. One day in the future I will be severely disappointed.
If they're never caught, it doesn't matter what system we're using! The system we use now is no less vulnerable to crap like that.
You have to see the difference though. One is an illegal attempt to generate false evidence (the confession) while the other is illegally gathering true evidence (say illegally recording a conversation with a lawyer.)
Arg. I agree with your goals, but you're still jumping to conclusions. Maybe there would be some martyr cops. But right now there are cops like that! They break the rules, and if they're caught all that happens is their case can't go forward. Maybe if there were some personal repercussions we could cut down on this shit. And where are you drawing this idea that more people will be harassed come from? Like I said, we already have cops who ignore the rules. Hell, the way things are right now, an officer can harass people _more_, since if he doesn't plan on actually charging anybody there's no downside to violating rights.
But right now there are cops like that!
The fact that there exist cops that are like that right now does not indicate that there wouldn't be even more if they knew that the evidence wouldn't be thrown out. We need to both throw out the evidence and punish those who gather evidence illegally to minimize the number of cops who will do such things.
Hell, the way things are right now, an officer can harass people _more_, since if he doesn't plan on actually charging anybody there's no downside to violating rights.
That's an argument for adding punishments into the system, not for allowing evidence that was collected illegally.
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Nope. The exclusionary principle does not rely on pinning actual blame on any individual person, just a judgment as to whether the evidence was obtained illegally, directly or indirectly.
Let's take another example: the police beat some information out of the guy, and use it to find evidence of the crime. Under current rules, that bare fact is enough to toss the evidence. Under your rules, the evidence would be admissible, and assuming the police are halfway competent there won't be evidence enough against any individual police officer to convict. Where's the disincentive here?
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
How could there possibly not be enough to convict an officer (or officers)? Either they beat him or they didn't. If there is enough evidence to say that the police violated his rights and whatever was gathered by this action should be thrown out, how can there not be enough evidence that the police violated his rights and should be charged?
Torture only works for confessions of things you already knew for sure.
Well, for completeness sake, there are specialised situations in which it can yield highly valuable results, and criminals for example, know that. I'm thinking of situations like "Tell me the combination to your safe, or else..." and the like. Time locks on bank vaults were for example invented to stop the all too popular kidnapping the bank manager and holding his family hostage, "or else".
But of course you're right, that as a means of intelligence gathering these situations are so uncommon, as to render the method completely useless.
Stefan Axelsson
Yes, I do see the difference. I think the exclusionary rule is important for keeping the state and its law enforcement honest. As you acknowledged in your original post, it's hard to get the cops to go after other cops. So keeping their ill-gotten evidence, even if it is factual, out of the courtroom helps to keep them on the up and up. Letting them use such evidence places a value on their law-breaking. We're basically saying, "What you did was wrong, and you will be punished, but we'll still use what you got." That's why I said earlier that it sends a mixed message. It's like saying it's wrong to rob a bank, but we'll help you spend the money. See what I'm saying?
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
You use "the police" as if the entire force would be charged, tried, and possibly convicted and imprisoned as a unit. If it's not possible to establish, beyond reasonable doubt, that one specific officer did something wrong, it's not possible to convict.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
If the guy comes out and it's obvious enough that he's injured that the evidence would be thrown out and none of the police will name who did it, it's pretty bloody obvious that the entire department should be held in contempt.
Hmm. I think I finally see what you mean. I don't exactly agree, but you do have a point.