enhanced interrogation techniques

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Officers on Gitmo Jury Slam Torture, Recommend Clemency

They call treatment of Majid Khan 'a stain on the moral fiber of America'

(Newser) - After a two-day sentencing hearing at Guantanamo Bay, a military jury sentenced former al-Qaeda operative Majid Khan to 26 years Friday—but seven of the eight jurors took the unusual step of writing a letter to a senior official urging clemency. The military officers, who had been required to sentence...

Gitmo Inmate Describes Years of Abuse at CIA Sites

'I thought I was going to die,' Majid Khan says

(Newser) - A Guantanamo Bay prisoner who went through the brutal US government interrogation program after the 9/11 attacks described it openly for the first time Thursday, saying he was left terrified and hallucinating from techniques that the CIA long sought to keep secret. Majid Khan, a former resident of the Baltimore...

Cheney: Torture Was 9/11, Not What We Did

Ex-VP says, 'I'd do it again in a minute'

(Newser) - Dick Cheney today doubled down on his defense of the CIA's so-called harsh interrogation techniques, telling Meet the Press that "torture to me is an American citizen on his cell phone making a last call to his four young daughters shortly before he burns to death in the...

CIA's Brennan: We Got a Lot Right, Made 'Abhorrent' Mistakes

Director offers up defense of torture program as Feinstein fact-checks on Twitter

(Newser) - CIA Director John Brennan offered up a spirited defense of his agency's torture program today, saying that "our nation and, in particular, this agency did a lot of things right during this difficult time to keep this country safe and secured" in the aftermath of 9/11, and that...

CIA's Torture Drew on Famed Dog Experiment

More on 'learned helplessness'

(Newser) - As earlier reported , a pair of retired Air Force psychologists who had never interrogated anybody before were paid $81 million to devise the CIA's "enhanced interrogation" program and, much to Martin Seligman's displeasure, they devised their techniques by drawing on Seligman's "learned helplessness" theory. The...

Polish Leaders: We OK'd Secret Prisons, Not Torture

US just asked for a 'quiet site' to 'obtain info,' they say

(Newser) - After years of denials, two former Polish leaders acknowledged yesterday that they had allowed a secret CIA prison to operate on their territory, but they insisted they never authorized the harsh treatment or torture of its inmates. Former Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski and former Prime Minister Leszek Miller spoke to...

Torture Report's Footnotes Alone Are Frightening

One detainee may have been simply in 'wrong place at wrong time'

(Newser) - If you don't have time to read the 528-page summary of the Senate's findings on interrogation techniques , you can get a sense of its revelations just by reading the footnotes, Vocativ reports. The site offers material from just the first 200 of the report's 38,000 footnotes:...

Torture Report: The 13 Key Techniques

Waterboarding, 180-hour sleep deprivation among them

(Newser) - The Senate's newly released report on "enhanced interrogation" points to 13 different techniques used against detainees. They appear in a Justice Department memo to the CIA from May 2005, and the AP recounts them:
  1. Abdominal Slap: The interrogator slaps the detainee's belly with the back of his
...

Psychologists Were Paid $81M to Devise CIA Tortures

Air Force retirees had never carried out real interrogation

(Newser) - A pair of retired Air Force psychologists who had never interrogated anybody before were paid a fortune to devise the CIA's "enhanced interrogation" program, according to yesterday's Senate Intelligence Committee report . The psychologists—identified in earlier reports as Jim Mitchell and Bruce Jessen—helped develop interrogation techniques...

CIA Lied and Lied About Torture, Says Report

More details from Senate Intelligence Committee report coming to light

(Newser) - Yesterday, congressional staffers dished to the AP about some of the overarching findings of a contentious Senate Intelligence Committee report—namely, that the CIA's use of torture played no role in finding Osama bin Laden, for all the agency's previous declarations to the contrary. The Washington Post follows...

Torture Didn't Help Catch bin Laden, Report Finds

Senate Intelligence Committee: No evidence tortured detainees gave up crucial info

(Newser) - The report that has thrown the CIA into a bitter fight with the Senate Intelligence Committee concludes that there is no evidence that torture helped the agency find Osama bin Laden, congressional aides and other sources tell the AP . The CIA has argued that "harsh interrogation techniques" like waterboarding...

Ex-CIA Man Kiriakou Gets 2.5 Years for Leaks

Judge says she would have given him worse sentence if not for plea deal

(Newser) - Former CIA officer John Kiriakou was sentenced today to more than two years in prison by a federal judge who rejected arguments that he was acting as a whistleblower when he leaked a covert officer's name to a reporter . A plea deal required the judge to impose a sentence...

Conclusion of 3-Year Probe: Torture Didn't Work

Senate Democrats' investigation finds 'no evidence' of efficacy: sources

(Newser) - Senate Intelligence Committee Democrats are about to wrap-up a three-year investigation into the "enhanced interrogation techniques" the CIA used during the Bush administration, and sources tell Reuters that they've found "no evidence" that the tactics played "any significant role" in Osama bin Laden's death, and...

'20th Hijacker' Sues for Gitmo Torture Tapes

Videos of sessions are 'sickening,' says lawyer

(Newser) - The Saudi national accused of being the "20th hijacker" on 9/11 is suing the government to release what his lawyers call "sickening" videos of his torture at Guantanamo Bay. Mohammed al-Qahtani was the victim of "torture and other profoundly cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment," involving marathon...

USS Cole Terrorist Faces Capital Charges Again

Original charges were dropped because suspect was tortured

(Newser) - One of the "high-value" detainees imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay has been charged with planning the 2000 terrorist attack on the USS Cole in Yemen that killed 17 US sailors, reports the LA Times . Abd al Rahim al Nashiri, a Saudi of Yemeni descent, faces the death penalty if convicted...

Judge Lets Army Vet Sue Rumsfeld Over Detention

American contractor says defense sec approved his detention, torture in Iraq

(Newser) - An Army vet who says he was imprisoned unjustly and tortured by the US military in Iraq can sue former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld personally for damages, a judge ruled yesterday. The veteran, a private contractor who worked as a Marine translator in the volatile Anbar province, says he was...

Rick Santorum: McCain Doesn't 'Get' Torture

Former POW's spokesman gets snarky in response

(Newser) - Rick Santorum raised more than a few eyebrows yesterday when he said that John McCain “doesn’t understand how enhanced interrogation works.” Santorum was taking issue with McCain’s assertion , backed by a letter from Leon Panetta, that information gained under torture did not lead to Osama bin...

US Seeks to Grill 3 Osama Widows

US official calls for 'calm' in assessing relationship with Pakistan

(Newser) - US officials are eager to question the three widows of Osama bin Laden, who are in Pakistani custody, as part of its investigation into potential ties between Pakistan and bin Laden, reports the Los Angeles Times . Despite Pakistan's possible complicity in hiding bin Laden, national security advisor Tom Donilon...

CIA Interrogators Deserve Thanks, Not Punishment

Waterboarding helped lead us to bin Laden: Linda Chavez

(Newser) - Waterboarding played a role in leading us to Osama bin Laden, writes Linda Chavez. So why is the Obama administration still pursuing its investigation of CIA interrogators, she wonders at the Washington Examiner . These agents deserve thanks, not punishment. The Obama administration must know it doesn't make sense: "...

Torture 'Apologists' Are Wrong: It's Never Justified, Even if it Led US to Osama bin Laden (Op-Ed)
Torture 'Apologists' Are Wrong: It's Never Justified
counterpoint
May 6, 2011 11:55 AM CDT

Torture 'Apologists' Are Wrong: It's Never Justified

Let's not embrace the values of Osama bin Laden: op-ed essay

(Newser) - The "apologists" crowing that we never would have caught Osama bin Laden without waterboarding and other forms of torture are sadly off base, write Charles and Gregory Fried in the Washington Post . For starters, we can't know if they're right. But even if they are, the larger...

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