
The C.I.A. Torture Cover-Up - r0h1n
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/12/opinion/the-cia-torture-cover-up.html?ref=opinion&_r=0
======
mullingitover
This is a great example of how the Constitution and our system of laws is
meaningless as long as two branches conspire to make it so. In this case, the
executive branch allowed the torture to go unpunished, and the legislative
branch allowed the executive branch to do so.

There is a third party that needs to acquiesce to the lawlessness: the voting
public. Well, sort of. The current president promised them that there would be
accountability for the torture, but that campaign promise went the way of so
many others.

So it goes.

~~~
Crito
> _The current president promised them that there would be accountability for
> the torture, but that campaign promise went the way of so many others._

That is the part that just kills me. One of the planks in Obama's campaigns
_(or at least the first)_ was anti-torture _(at least that is how I perceived
it at the time, and I believe that is how I was intended to perceive it.)_ So
the public voted for a representative who would curtail torture, but the
representative they voted for was a liar.

I don't have much faith that the other major candidate was any more honest, so
what _really_ is the general public to do? Vote third party perhaps, but they
would still lack any assurance whatsoever that their third party candidate was
not a liar. How can a representative democracy function when all the candidate
representatives are liars?

They aren't actually representing the people that elect them, so my conclusion
is that whatever our system of government may be, it _is not actually_ a
_representative_ democracy.

(Yeah yeah, technically we vote for people, not for platforms... except that
the unbelievably vast majority of voters have never met these candidates, so
they "know" the candidate only through the candidates portrayal of their
platform. The _reality_ is that the general public votes for platforms _(or
cynically, attractive faces...)_.)

~~~
skolos
By the end of the first term it was clear that Obama ignored a lot of his
promises. What really surprised me that people still believed him enough to
elect for the second term.

~~~
bediger4000
_eople still believed him enough to elect for the second term._

I certainly didn't believe Obama by the 2012 campaign, but I didn't have a
huge choice. I blame the other major party for nominating an obvious empty
suit of clothes, and you should, too.

~~~
crusso
At very least, it would have been worth voting for Romney to get the media to
do something like its job.

This IRS scandal should have the press howling at the stonewalling of the
administration and the suppression of the rights of Americans trying to
participate in the election process. Instead, it's crickets. After all,
they're only a bunch of "tea baggers".

~~~
mullingitover
> This IRS scandal should have the press howling at the stonewalling of the
> administration and the suppression of the rights of Americans trying to
> participate in the election process

Which IRS scandal? This one[1]?

"Further investigation revealed that certain terms and themes in the
applications of liberal-leaning groups and the Occupy movement had also
triggered additional scrutiny, though possibly at a lower rate.[3][4][5][6][7]
_The only known denial of tax-exempt status occurred to a progressive group._
"

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_IRS_scandal](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_IRS_scandal)

~~~
crusso
There has been no investigation.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_IRS_scandal#FBI_Investigat...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_IRS_scandal#FBI_Investigation)

As recently as last week, the president of the Landmark Legal Foundation (Mark
Levin) - the Foundation that triggered the original Treasury Inspector
General's inquiry into this abuse of the IRS made the statement on his radio
program that not a single Tea Party group had been interviewed by the FBI in
its "investigation".

If you want to claim that the audits were balanced across political groups,
you'll have to contend with the information that we have that 10 times as many
conservative groups were targeted and when conservative groups were targeted
they were asked 10 times as many questions.

[http://hotair.com/greenroom/archives/2013/08/01/study-100-pe...](http://hotair.com/greenroom/archives/2013/08/01/study-100-percent-
of-liberal-groups-targeted-by-the-irs-were-approved-just-46-percent-of-
conservative-orgs/)

So there's no equivalency there. Maybe a couple of progressive groups were
swept up or maybe they were even targeted so that someone could have some kind
of story of fairness.

------
dmix
The CIA destroying tapes of torture interrogations is probably one of the most
blatant examples of intelligence agencies operating lawlessly, with the
executive branch in full knowledge of them operating in that fashion, but
choosing not to do anything about it.

> Under President Obama, prosecutors exonerated the officials who ordered
> those tapes destroyed.

No one was held accountable. Charges were quietly dropped in 2010:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_CIA_interrogation_tapes_d...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_CIA_interrogation_tapes_destruction)

This example is such a clear disregard for the law, even more so than most NSA
leaks.

~~~
serf
the NSA stuff may be more vague, it's intended to be, but it's no less
illegal.

Instead of minimizing their disregard for the law in the case of illegal
spying, please consider your wording.

~~~
dmix
Agreed, I'm not attempting to downplay the NSA leaks, my point was that the
NSA operates under pseudo-law rubber stamped by the intelligence committees,
congress, and FISA. The CIA combined with executive branch blatantly disregard
even the oversight committees. Another example:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Intelligence_Agency#Co...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Intelligence_Agency#Covert_programs_hidden_from_Congress)

------
TrainedMonkey
"Ms. Feinstein said that when Senate staff members reviewed thousands of
documents describing those interrogations in 2009, they found that the
C.I.A.’s leadership seriously misled the committee when it described the
interrogations program to the panel in 2006, 'only hours before President Bush
disclosed the program to the public.'"

Am I understanding this right? They found gross violations in 2009 and only
raising concerns now.

~~~
leeoniya
"seriously misled"

you'll never hear the word "lied" because it's politically incorrect when
referring to those in power.

------
themgt
Everyone absolutely must read Feinstein's full statement. Most of the press
coverage is woefully lacking in the details and context that move this into
really serious political/constitutional shitstorm territory

[http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/world/2014/03/11/transcript-...](http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/world/2014/03/11/transcript-
dianne-feinstein-statement-cia-
investigations/oflzYokp7VcqPm8KpkRlaJ/story.html)

~~~
Zigurd
Significantly, Robert Eatinger, the CIA lawyer who threatened Feinstein's
staffers was the same person who OK'ed the destruction of the torture tapes,
and who knew that the torture was way out of bounds in at least two specific
ways: Waterboarding was widely used and used repeatedly, and that sleep
deprivation was also used beyond the parameters that were OK'ed, never mind
that both are torture in the first place. And what are the odds that the known
crimes are the tip of the iceberg? In other words, he OK'ed the destruction of
evidence of very serious crimes.

------
bediger4000
The editorial linked-to is worth a read: short, to the point, and harsh,
almost as if they had summoned Hunter S. Thompson from the dead to write it.
The editorial does miss out on naming the CIA's acting general counsel, whose
name is mentioned 1,600 times in the (unreleased/still classified) Senate
Committee Report. To be clear, the current CIA general counsel is one of the
torturers, and also apparently fighting tooth and nail to not release the
report.

Where are the Snowdens of yesteryear?

~~~
a3n
> Where are the Snowdens of yesteryear?

The ones that got caught were probably extraordinarily renditioned.

------
blisterpeanuts
“the C.I.A.’s search may also have violated the Fourth Amendment, the Computer
Fraud and Abuse Act, as well as Executive Order 12333, which prohibits the
C.I.A. from conducting domestic searches or surveillance.” -Sen. Feinstein

Yet, the NSA is not prevented from domestic searches and surveillance? How is
this possible or consistent with EO 12333, let alone the U.S. Constitution?

Methinks Senator Feinstein doth protest too much. She supported NSA's massive
and unconstitutional domestic surveillance. Now she knows what it feels like
to be spied upon, eh?

------
amckenna
> _" an illegal search of computers (provided to the Senate staff by the
> C.I.A.) that contained drafts of the internal review."_

Sounds like the Senate review committee needs to work on their opsec and move
the files to a safer location after receiving them.

~~~
Phlarp
The whole point was that the Senate staff could only look at these
(classified) documents in a secure room / network provided by the CIA.

Why this procedure is flawed is left as an exercise for the reader

~~~
amckenna
If the Executive branch is being investigated by the Legislative branch then
the security of the documents should be assured by the Legislative or better
yet Judicial branch. The process sounds broken.

~~~
Phlarp
Their staffs don't have the necessary clearance level to administer such a
network.

