interrogation

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Senate to Probe Bush-Era CIA
 Senate to Probe Bush-Era CIA 

Senate to Probe Bush-Era CIA

Inquiry to focus on controversial interrogation and detention program

(Newser) - The Senate Intelligence Committee plans a sweeping investigation into the CIA's actions under President Bush, the Los Angeles Times reports. Officials say the probe is a fact-finding mission rather than an investigation into whether laws were broken, but the inquiry is certain to put the spotlight back on the agency's...

Obama OK With CIA Rendition
Obama OK With CIA Rendition

Obama OK With CIA Rendition

Prez allows abductions, transfers to continue, promises suspects won't be tortured

(Newser) - Torture techniques are out and Guantanamo Bay is facing closure, but Barack Obama is keeping one anti-terror tool: rendition, the Los Angeles Times reports. He signed an executive order allowing the CIA to continue the practice of secret abductions and transfers of prisoners to US-friendly nations. "You still...

Obama Picks CIA Veteran as Terror Adviser

Controversial Brennan backs harsh tactics, has contractor ties

(Newser) - The rumors are true: Barack Obama has picked John O. Brennan as his top counterterrorism adviser, the Washington Post reports, just six weeks after Brennan was forced to back out of the hunt for the CIA directorship. Brennan has made public statements about controversial CIA tactics such as extraordinary rendition—...

Cheney: I OK'd Waterboarding
 Cheney: I OK'd Waterboarding 

Cheney: I OK'd Waterboarding

VP gave go ahead for 'remarkably successful' tactic

(Newser) - Vice President Dick Cheney personally approved using waterboarding to interrogate 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, he reveals in a wide-ranging interview on ABC News. "I was  involved in helping get the process cleared. The agency came in and wanted to know what they could and couldn't do," said...

Terrorists Planned to Blow Up Hotel

Pakistani man confesses that group planned to blow up Taj Hotel

(Newser) - A captured terrorist has confessed that his group intended to blow up Mumbai's Taj Mahal hotel, and had enough explosives to reduce it to rubble in an "Indian 9/11," the Times of India reports. The 21-year-old Pakistani, apprehended after a gunfight in which he killed a police inspector,...

Secret White House Memos OK'd Waterboarding

Fearing backlash, CIA sought and received support

(Newser) - The Bush administration gave its blessing in writing for the CIA to use waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques in two secret memos that have only now come to light, the Washington Post reveals. Intelligence officials sought to get something on paper in 2003—more than a year after the...

Interrogation Debate Divides Psychologists

Should they be present for questioning? 'Soul' of profession at stake

(Newser) - The use of psychologists to aid government interrogations at places such as Guantanamo Bay has triggered an acrimonious ethical debate as the American Psychological Association considers banning the practice altogether, the New York Times reports. Some say psychologists are used to “break” detainees—in some cases illegally—while others...

Video of Gitmo Interrogation Hits Web

Sobbing 16-year-old Canadian detainee claims torture

(Newser) - A videotape of Canadian officials interrogating a sobbing 16-year-old detainee at Guantanamo Bay surfaced on the Internet today. The clip, made public under a court order obtained by the suspect's lawyer, is the first such footage from the detention center to reach the public, the CBC reports. It shows an...

Gitmo 'Torture' Modeled on Chinese Grilling of US POWs

Communist methods became US training manual

(Newser) - Guantanamo Bay interrogators learned their techniques from Chinese Communists who used them on American POWs in the Korean War, the New York Times reports. A 1957 Air Force chart labeled Communist Coercive Methods for Eliciting Individual Compliance detailed methods like prolonged standing and exposure to cold, and was used as...

Ex-Detainee Describes Gitmo Tortures
Ex-Detainee Describes
Gitmo Tortures

Ex-Detainee Describes Gitmo Tortures

He was beaten, hung from ceiling, shocked with electricity

(Newser) - A man arrested in Pakistan and held as an enemy combatant in Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay was hung from the ceiling, beaten, and shocked with jolts of electricity, he testified to Congress yesterday. The German-born Turkish citizen told lawmakers that US interrogators also forced water down his throat. He was...

CIA's Legal Troubles Grow Over Tapes' Destruction

Agency faces growing number of challenges from detainees

(Newser) - The CIA's decision to destroy interrogation videotapes to save itself legal trouble is backfiring in a big way, the New York Times reports. Lawyers for more than a dozen detainees have filed challenges citing the destruction of evidence, putting terrorism cases on shaky ground and jeopardizing future prosecutions as well,...

Qaeda Suspect Held by CIA, Moved to Gitmo

Bin Laden aide has been in CIA custody since last year

(Newser) - A top al-Qaeda suspect who has been in secret CIA detention for at least 6 months was moved this week  to Guantanamo Bay, the Pentagon said yesterday. Muhammad Rahim, described as a "tough, seasoned, jihadist," is said to have been a close associate of Osama bin Laden's who...

Senate Grills Mukasey Today on Waterboarding

Mukasey warns he'll stonewall on questions about legality

(Newser) - A high-noon face off is looming today between Attorney General Michael Mukasey and the Senate Judiciary Committee over waterboarding, the simulated drowning interrogation technique that many consider torture. Committee chair Patrick Leahy said Mukasey faces "serious questions" on the issue at today's hearing. But Mukasey has warned Leahy in...

Saddam Faked Nukes to Scare Iran, Not US: Agent

Did not believe US would invade over weapons of mass destruction

(Newser) - Saddam Hussein revealed in FBI interrogations that he had no nuclear or biological weapons of mass destruction, but hid that fact to avoid invasion by Iran—and was stunned when the US invaded. "For him, it was critical that he was seen as the strong, defiant Saddam to prevent...

White House Slams NYT for 'Misleading' CIA Story

Disputes its officials were in on destruction

(Newser) - The Bush administration refuted a New York Times story today that White House lawyers discussed with the CIA whether or not to destroy detainee interrogation videotapes, CNN reports. "The New York Times' inference that there is an effort to mislead in this matter is pernicious and troubling," a...

CIA Was Warned Not to Destroy Tapes

Agency defied advice from White House, Congress, Justice

(Newser) - The CIA destroyed interrogation videotapes in 2005 against the advice of the White House, Justice Department, and members of Congress, the New York Times reports. All warned of the potential legal risks of destroying the tapes, which showed the harsh interrogation of two al-Qaeda operatives. The agency's chief of clandestine...

CIA Sat on Tapes of Al Qaeda Questionings

Agency told court no recordings existed during trial of Moussaoui

(Newser) - Though it twice declared otherwise in court, the CIA has three video and audio recordings of high-level al Qaeda interrogations, federal prosecutors revealed yesterday. The defense team for convicted terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui requested the tapes, but the CIA denied their existence. The tapes probably won’t undo Moussaoui’s conviction—...

FBI Probes Terror Cases Muddied by CIA

Data culled by torture may be tossed out of court, feds fear

(Newser) - The FBI is probing Guantanamo Bay cases that the CIA has muddied by using torture, the Los Angeles Times reports. Up to 300 FBI agents are now interviewing Al Qaeda chiefs, including mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, seeking data that's admissable in court. Says one expert, "I think there's no...

UK Probes Charges That CIA Used Brit Prison for Torture

(Newser) - British officials will investigate persistent claims that the CIA secretly interrogated terrorism suspects at a UK prison in the Indian Ocean, the Guardian reports. Authorities have repeatedly questioned American officials, who deny the reports. But an organization representing detainees insists the claims are true, adding that the British may be...

Prez Yanks Pick for Top CIA Lawyer
Prez Yanks Pick for Top CIA Lawyer

Prez Yanks Pick for Top CIA Lawyer

'Enhanced interrogation' support drives Rizzo out of the running

(Newser) - The White House has dropped its nomination of John Rizzo as the CIA's top counsel after Democrats and human rights groups slammed him for supporting "enhanced interrogation" techniques. The career CIA lawyer sent a letter to President Bush withdrawing his nomination yesterday, Reuters reports. Rizzo retreated because he had...

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