Dianne Feinstein Calls Bullshit On The 'Threat Assessment' That Said Releasing CIA Torture Report Would Lead To Violence
from the what-violence? dept
As you may recall, in the leadup to the government finally releasing a heavily redacted version of the Senate Intelligence Committee's CIA Torture Report, the state department kept asking for the report not to be released, claiming that they had evidence that the release of the report would cause violence directed at US citizens around the globe. Even Secretary of State John Kerry pleaded with Feinstein not to release the report. We questioned how legitimate these supposed "threats" were, and you may have noticed in the two months since the report was released a severe absence of sudden new attacks that were being blamed on the release of the report.Feinstein may no longer be the head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, but she's still on it. And in its first public hearing of the new Congress, she took the opportunity to quiz National Counterterrorism Center boss Nick Rasmussen about the supposed "threat assessment."
Feinstein: And I have one other question to ask the Director. Um, Mr. Director, days before the public release of our report on CIA detention and interrogation, we received an intelligence assessment predicting violence throughout the world and significant damage to United States relationships. NCTC participated in that assessment. Do you believe that assessment proved correct?As Marcy Wheeler notes, later in the hearing, Senator Ron Wyden also got Rasmussen to admit that he hadn't read the rest of the CIA Torture report, but just the unclassified summary.
Rasmussen: I can speak particularly to the threat portion of that rather than the partnership aspect of that because I would say that’s the part NCTC would have the most direct purchase on, and I can’t say that I can disaggregate the level of terrorism and violence we’ve seen in the period since the report was issued, disaggregate that level from what we might have seen otherwise because, as you know, the turmoil roiling in those parts of the world, not that part of the world, those parts of the world, the Middle East, Africa, South Asia, there’s a number of factors that go on creating the difficult threat environment we face.
So the assessment we made at the time as a community was that we would increase or add to the threat picture in those places. I don’t know that looking backwards now, I can say it did by X% or it didn’t by X%. We were also, I think, clear in saying that there’s parts of the impact that we will not know until we have the benefit of time to see how it would play out in different locations around the world.
Feinstein: Oh boy do I disagree with you. But that’s what makes this arena I guess. The fact in my mind was that the threat assessment was not correct.
Of course, it's no real surprise that the "threat assessment" turned out to be complete bunk, like almost everyone predicted. But since this is Washington DC, there's no accountability on issues like this. It's why the intelligence community can spread scary FUD all day long -- because no one ever calls them on the fact that it's bullshit, and there's no accountability at all.
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Filed Under: cia, dianne feinstein, john kerry, nctc, nick rasmussen, senate intelligence committee, threat assessment, torture report
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Bullshit
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Re: Bullshit
If you think there are 2 parties up there... you are mistaken. Sure we serfs here in electorate land will piss and moan but we will just vote them right back in.
Nothing is changing I bet.
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The fact that she got to the point of calling out other parts of government for lies and underhanded dealings speaks volumes, and sets a precedent for the senate to actually hold some degree of a moral compass on the activities of other branches of government in the future.
Now if only they could get congress to join them....
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Congress people generally won't demand accountability when every political interest bends in the other direction, so kudos to Feinstein for being an exception.
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Both may be different, but the level of corruption is to high on both sides to measure it.
Voting in these clowns while holding your nose is more like choosing your death penalty.
Do you want to die by...
Firing Squad
Electric Chair
Hanging
Guillotine
Quartering
Acid Bath
Asphyxiation
Lethal Injection
Voting for either of the parties as they stand now is just a vote for death of this nation... the only different being which death you are voting on.
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http://www.democracynow.org/2015/1/15/did_gitmo_suicides_cover_up_murder
Is it safe to say that, once we start conducting medical experiments on our detainees, we're basically at a Dr. Mengele level of evil?
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She is a proven hypocrite that is more than happy to restrict the rights of common citizens by takes offense when those rights are taken from her.
She is against people having the right to own a gun to protect themselves, but she herself carries a gun to protect herself.
She is all for spying on everyday citizens until she gets spied on herself.
She is completely useless as a representative of the people
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No accountability at all
.. but I seem to maybe distinctly remember looking around and not having any guns to hold so I started sharpening my chopsticks. .. if you can't get hold of any guns then save your takeout sticks. That's all I have to say.
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It appears Mr. Rasmussen just admitted that it's impossible for the government to reliably assess any threat assessment claims they make...
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It has nothing to do with a moral compass, it's because the CIA was caught spying on the Senate and not just ordinary citizens. She didn't say criticize any part of the intelligence apparatus until that happened.
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Accountability? What Accountability?
I'll grant you that the intel community can provide a lengthy list of recent examples, from CIA torturers being let off the hook through to the guy who wiped those incriminating torture videos, the CIA techs and maybe others who spied on the Senate intel committee, and Clapper's perjury of March 2013, but you also have such examples as the administration higher ups who got the US into that benighted Iraq war then proceeded to thoroughly bungle it in numerous different ways.
Where was the accountability for them? Were they fired or even disciplined?
The truth is there is no accountability in the US administration in general. At best you get a resignation; and often not even then.
Or to put ir another way when was the last time Congress impeached, or tried to impeach, anyone in the US administration who wasn't a sitting president? Answer: 1876. (Source: wikipedia. Except for Clinton, all the others impeached since then have been judges.And even that 1876 example is an outlier.)
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Re: Accountability? What Accountability?
Because to describe the ways everyone avoids accountability would be off topic and make this the longest TechDirt article in history.
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Long Live The Constitution of America and Americans
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Second If you believe that voting is a real apparatus.. if you think they would let normal people decide who rules, you have been fooled sadly, my friend.
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