White House And Senate Intelligence Committee Still Can't Agree On CIA Torture Report Redactions

from the release-the-whole-thing dept

Tue, Sep 9th 2014 3:53pm — Mike Masnick

We've been waiting quite some time for the government to finally get around to releasing parts of the $40 million 6,300 page CIA torture report, which will detail how the CIA committed torture, lied about it, and how that torture did nothing even remotely effective. As you may recall, the Senate Intelligence Committee, which wrote the report, voted back in April to declassify the 480-page "executive summary" which was written to be declassified. That is, the really secret stuff is buried in the other 6,000 pages or so. Given that, the expectation was that the exec summary would need minimal redactions. Of course, the White House asked the CIA to handle the redactions, and considering that the report makes the CIA look bad, the CIA suddenly became quite infatuated with that black redaction ink.

The report came back to the Senate Intelligence Committee with significant redactions, so much so that the Intelligence Committee declared it unacceptable and even argued that the choices in redactions made the report incomprehensible.

Since then there's been back and forth fighting over it, with some reports suggesting that the (still redacted) report might finally come out in the next week or two. However, those plans are on hold, as apparently the White House and the Senate Intelligence Committeestill can't agree on redactions, leading some to say the report won't be released until November at the earliest.

Once again, we're left wondering why the Senate Intelligence Committee won't just go with plan B and release the damn thing themselves. All of this delaying only works to the CIA's advantage. The CIA has no incentive at all to compromise and come to agreement on the redactions since it wants the report hidden. And, yes, the White House claims to want the report released and it's got the final say over the CIA, but its actions to date have not suggested that the White House is particularly serious about getting this report out there.

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Filed Under: cia, delays, redactions, senate intelligence committee, torture report, white house

21 Comments

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art guerrilla (profile), 9 Sep 2014 @ 4:05pm

it could be worse...
mainstream media 'discussion' will be driven by stories of redactions, etc, rather than the more harsh realization that we have become amoral agents of Empire who torture mostly brown, mostly moose limb, most of the world over, who mostly pose no existential threat to the us of a ...

note: the 'story' of redactions is absolutely both a right and proper story for the mainstream media -and especially techdirtia- to cover, but it will done to the exclusion of the elephant-in-the-room story of WE TORTURE, WE ARE MONSTERS...
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Uriel-238 on a mobile device, 9 Sep 2014 @ 4:10pm

So long as they can't agree...
...we, the public, don't get to see it. Sounds like win-win for CIA and White-House alike. If I were were the White House, I'd look to disagree for the entirety of my remaining 2.2 years.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Sep 2014 @ 4:11pm

Re: it could be worse...
So 5-6 years into the next administration can we get a redo of all this theater, only with drones this time?
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That One Guy (profile), 9 Sep 2014 @ 5:07pm

'No, that line makes me look bad, remove it.'
Letting the CIA/WH have any say or input on the report is like giving someone investigated of a crime final say over what the report covering their own actions is allowed to say.

The 'Intelligence' committee should just give the CIA/WH the bird and release the entire thing, as right now with all the fighting and bickering over it, they're just doing exactly what the CIA wants, which is to keep the report hidden.
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beltorak (profile), 9 Sep 2014 @ 5:31pm

They need to release both the original unredacted version and the redacted version so we know exactly what they wanted to hide.
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Uriel-238 on a mobile device (profile), 9 Sep 2014 @ 6:36pm

"It would be unfortunate if..."
"...all that dirt we had on the Intelligence Committee found its way into the hands of the media."

I suspect there are very good reasons the intelligence committee is toeing the line that the CIA drew.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Sep 2014 @ 7:28pm

Re:
I was on the verge of posting a comment about how someone on the inside needs to go ahead and leak the damn thing already! But you make a damn good point. Now i think the leaker should wait until the redacted version gets released first.
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Whoever, 9 Sep 2014 @ 7:34pm

Torture was worse than waterboarding ...
Even he Spanish Inquisition considered waterboarding to be a torture technique, not "enhanced interrogation", but it did not stop there:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/al-qaeda/11080450/CIA-tortured-al-Qaeda-suspects-clo se-to-the-point-of-death-by-drowning-them-in-water-filled-baths.html
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Whoever, 9 Sep 2014 @ 7:36pm

Re: "It would be unfortunate if..."
Whatever the truth is, there will always be a suspicion that the NSA is blackmailing our elected representatives.
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That One Guy (profile), 9 Sep 2014 @ 8:00pm

Re: "It would be unfortunate if..."
Wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if that was indeed the case. The CIA tortured captives, a little blackmail to cover up their activities is nothing in comparison.
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tomczerniawski, 9 Sep 2014 @ 8:25pm

Re: "It would be unfortunate if..."
The reason, singular, is simple: the committee knows what the CIA does for a living. They are America's murderers, assassins and torturers. Their job is to eliminate anyone that might threaten America as they see it - and the committee knows that they too can be declared "un-American" if the pressure on the CIA gets to be too great.

These folks topple nations. They incite revolutions. They back dictators. They kill countless people. They finance themselves with drug smuggling and arms sales. They have satellites, they have drones. They have a freakin' heart attack gun. A few congressmen wouldn't be tough to dispatch, if it looks like they're trying to clog the empire's gears from turning smoothly with pesky war crime investigations.
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Roger Strong (profile), 9 Sep 2014 @ 8:47pm

Re: Torture was worse than waterboarding ...
When it became public that British intelligence officials were present during torture it became a Very Big Deal in Britain. MI6 had to testify in court.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/defence/4551441/UK-government-suppressed-evidence-on-Bi nyam-Mohamed-torture-because-MI6-helped-his-interrogators.html

The 25 lines edited out of the court papers contained details of how Mr Mohamed's genitals were sliced with a scalpel and other torture methods so extreme that waterboarding, the controversial technique of simulated drowning, "is very far down the list of things they did," the official said.

"Approximately 100 detainees, including CIA-held detainees, have died during U.S. interrogations, and some are known to have been tortured to death.”

http://www.salon.com/2009/06/30/accountability_7/
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Roger Strong (profile), 9 Sep 2014 @ 8:58pm

Re: Re: "It would be unfortunate if..."
Their job is to eliminate anyone that might threaten America

There's a growing list of people kidnapped, shipped to another country and tortured, then released after months or years with an "er, never mind."

It's long been obvious that they were doing this on *vague suspicions* that someone was connected to a threat.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Sep 2014 @ 11:03pm

Re: it could be worse...
I disagree. I am deeply concerned about radical moose limbs invading from the icy Northern wastes and taking over the world, and wholeheartedly support all attempts to stop them.
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Anonymous Coward, 10 Sep 2014 @ 1:28am

So much for "if you have done nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear", eh
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Anonymous Coward, 10 Sep 2014 @ 5:01am

had there have been no torturing to begin with, there would be no need to redact anything, would there??
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Tweak (profile), 10 Sep 2014 @ 6:29am

I suspect that the release of this heavily redacted document will SOMEHOW be after the November elections. How could that happen???
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Pixelation, 10 Sep 2014 @ 8:00am

There was a time when I was proud to be an American. We've become common street thugs. "Enhanced Interrogation" methods should be used on any official that approves them to insure they know what they are allowing.
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trypateamie, 10 Sep 2014 @ 8:16am

Everyone in their right minds knew Gearge Bush was am arsehole who abused his power, then America got a new president who was supposed to be "the change" America needed and he's just as bad.
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Rekrul, 10 Sep 2014 @ 8:53am

We've been waiting quite some time for the government to finally get around to releasing parts of the $40 million 6,300 page CIA torture report, which will detail how the CIA committed torture, lied about it, and how that torture did nothing even remotely effective.

It won't detail anything of the kind. If you believe that anything even close to incriminating will be left unredacted, I have some prime real estate in Florida I'd like to sell you...
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That One Guy (profile), 10 Sep 2014 @ 12:33pm

Re:
Indeed, the only way anything damning in the report will be allowed to be made public is if the CIA/WH are barred completely from redacting any of it; if either of them have redaction powers over it it will be black-lined into uselessness.
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