Sen. Mike Lee, a Utah Republican, said that during his 13 years on the committee, he’d pressed multiple FBI directors about civil liberties violations associated with the surveillance program and had repeatedly been given false reassurances about the reforms being put in place.
“Every darn one of them has told me the same thing: ‘Don’t worry about it, we’ve got this taken care of, we’ve got new procedures, it’s going to be different now,’” Lee said. “It’s never different. You haven’t changed.”
(03.12.2023)
“The intelligence community has indicated that they did not have access to this document,” Kirby said in an interview with NBC’s Kristen Welker on “Meet the Press” on Sunday.
(03.12.2023)
“Intelligence is a mosaic, and sometimes you know you can fashion things together and get a pretty good picture,” Kirby replied. “Other times, you know that there’s pieces of the puzzle that are missing.”
Kirby also declined to say whether Hamas’ incursion into Israel should be seen as a failure of Israeli intelligence.
(01.12.2023)
On Capitol Hill, members of the Senate and House intelligence committees have received several briefings about the Oct. 7 attack, according to a congressional aide familiar with the matter.
In at least one of those closed-door conversations, members were told that Israel had been aware about the potential for a Hamas attack from Gaza. But those readouts did not include the specific details of the Jericho Wall document, said the aide.
(28.09.2023)
There has been talk that former talk show host and current magazine and book publisher Oprah Winfrey might be of interest. Winfrey, though, would have to take more than a year away from her many lucrative enterprises if she did this.
The passionate advocate for liberal priorities who broke gender barriers was the oldest member of Congress. She was 90.
(Feb 14, 2023)
Feinstein, who at 89 is the oldest sitting U.S. senator and the longest-serving senator from her state, said she intends to “accomplish as much for California as I can through the end of next year when my term ends.”
“Even with a divided Congress, we can still pass bills that will improve lives,” Feinstein said in a statement.
(Feb. 06, 2023)
Senator Dianne Feinstein has reported a mere $558 in contributions to her 2024 reelection campaign last quarter, raising new questions about her readiness for a reelection bid.
(March 11, 2014)
Let me say up front that I come to the Senate Floor reluctantly. Since January 15, 2014, when I was informed of the CIA’s search of this committee’s network, I have been trying to resolve this dispute in a discreet and respectful way. I have not commented in response to media requests for additional information on this matter. However, the increasing amount of inaccurate information circulating now cannot be allowed to stand unanswered.
The origin of this study: The CIA’s detention and interrogation program began operations in 2002, though it was not until September 2006, that Members of the Intelligence Committee, other than the Chairman and Vice Chairman, were briefed. In fact, we were briefed by then-CIA Director Hayden only hours before President Bush disclosed the program to the public.
A little more than a year later, on December 6, 2007, a New York Times article revealed the troubling fact that the CIA had destroyed videotapes of some of the CIA’s first interrogations using so-called “enhanced techniques.” …
(12. März 2014)
Die Rede von Senatorin Dianne Feinstein vor dem Senat der Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika über die Sabotage der verfassungsmäßigen Kontrolle des Parlaments über die Central Intelligence Agency durch die Central Intelligence Agency ist vielleicht das Erbärmlichste, was ich in meinem Leben je gesehen und gehört habe. Es ist nicht nur der Offenbarungseid eines Ausnahmezustands, eines über sich selbst und die Welt verhängten Kriegsrechts des mächtigsten Imperiums auf dem Planeten, in seinem Krieg „on terror“, weltweit geführt mit seinen „Einflussgebieten“, „Alliierten“, Ablegern, schlechten Kopien und Kolonien. Es ist der Offenbarungseid seiner bis auf die Knochen korrupten, feigen, abgetakelten, unfähigen Zuträger, Mitwisser, Kollaborateure und Funktionäre.
Was Senatorin Feinstein hier zeigt, was sie da zeigt, ist so unbeschreiblich, das sogar mir die Worte fehlen um es zu beschreiben. Ich will hier den Inhalt ihres Statements nur deshalb zusammenfassen, weil ich davon ausgehe dass die ganzen Feinsteins der deutschsprachigen Presse dies alles weder hören, lesen, geschweige denn darüber berichten wollen, genauso wie deren KundInnen.
(Feb. 24, 2023)
In December 2014, the Obama administration released a 500-page summary of a classified Senate study of the C.I.A.’s so-called black site program. It revealed the agency’s practice of using “rectal rehydration” and “rectal feeding” to punish prisoners.
At the time, the C.I.A. defended it as a sound medical procedure. The group Physicians for Human Rights then condemned the practice as “sexual assault masquerading as medical treatment.”
But this week the agency declined a request for a comment on the descriptions that were attributed to the C.I.A. in open court. Nor would an agency spokeswoman respond to Dr. Crosby’s testimony that Mr. Nashiri also told her that he was sodomized with a broom stick while the C.I.A. held him in a cell, nude with his wrists shackled above his head.
The Committee makes the following findings and conclusions:
#1: The CIA‘s use of its enhanced interrogation techniques was not an effective means of acquiring intelligence or gaining cooperation from detainees.
(…)
#2: The CIA‘s justification for the use of its enhanced interrogation techniques rested on inaccurate claims of their effectiveness.
(…)
#3: The interrogations of CIA detainees were brutal and far worse than the CIA represented to policymakers and others. (…)
At least five CIA detainees were subjected to „rectal rehydration“ or rectal feeding without documented medical necessity. The CIA placed detainees in ice water „baths.“ The CIA led several detainees to believe they would never be allowed to leave CIA custody alive, suggesting to one detainee that he would only leave in a coffin-shaped box. One interrogator told another detainee that he would never go to court, because „we can never let the world know what I have done to you.“ CIA officers also threatened at least three detainees with harm to their families— to include threats to harm the children of a detainee, threats to sexually abuse the mother of a detainee, and a threat to „cut [a detainee‘s] mother‘s throat.“
#4: The conditions of confinement for CIA detainees were harsher than the CIA had represented to policymakers and others.
Conditions at CIA detention sites were poor, and were especially bleak early in the program. CIA detainees at the COBALT detention facility were kept in complete darkness and constantly shackled in isolated cells with loud noise or music and only a bucket to use for human waste.10 Lack of heat at the facility likely contributed to the death of a detainee. The chief of interrogations described COBALT as a „dungeon.“11 Another senior CIA officer stated that COBALT was itself an enhanced interrogation technique.“ At times, the detainees at COBALT were walked around naked or were shackled with their hands above their heads for extended periods of time. Other times, the detainees at COBALT were subjected to what was described as a „rough takedown,“ in which approximately five CIA officers would scream at a detainee, drag him outside of his cell, cut his clothes off, and secure him with Mylar tape. The detainee would then be hooded and dragged up and down a long corridor while being slapped and punched.
(Dec 09, 2014)
The drilldown from Bloomberg:
– CIA provided inaccurate information about effectiveness and scope of interrogations of suspected terrorists, and mismanaged a program that was far more brutal than represented, according to 6-year investigation by Democrats on Senate Intelligence Cmte.
– Interrogation techniques weren’t effective, didn’t produce key information that led to killing of Osama bin Laden and were significantly different from procedures authorized by Justice Dept, report says
– CIA provided inaccurate information to White House, Congress, DOJ, CIA Inspector General, media and the public
– “This document examines the CIA’s secret overseas detention of at least 119 individuals and the use of coercive interrogation techniques – in some cases amounting to torture,” Senate Intelligence Cmte Chairman Dianne Feinstein says in statement
The furor began after ProPublica, a nonprofit news organization, reported that Burr unloaded the stock around mid-February, about a week before the market started to plunge because of coronavirus concerns.
Burr‘s decision, which will go into effect on Friday, comes at a crucial moment for the committee. It‘s expected to vote next week on Rep. John Ratcliffe‘s nomination to be the next director of national intelligence and the committee is expected to release its final report on Russian interference in the 2016 election by the August recess.
But Republicans hold just a one-seat majority on the Senate Intelligence Committee.
Esper also said the so-called Gang of Eight, the top members of Congress’s intelligence committees, did not believe further intelligence on Iran should be shared with Congress.
Esper told CBS’s Margaret Brennan he spoke to one of the officials who briefed the Gang of Eight and that “his assessment was most if not all the members thought the intelligence was persuasive and that the Gang of Eight did not think it should be released to the broader members of Congress.”
The New York Times reported Tuesday afternoon that Trump has discussed firing Atkinson because the intelligence official found a whistleblower’s complaint about Trump‘s July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky credible and took action to advance it.
Donald Trump Jr. will testify Wednesday behind closed doors before the Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee, Fox News has learned, as part of what the president has called an „unfair“ effort to subject his son to yet another interview on Russia-related matters.
(23.8.2018)
Twitter chief executive Jack Dorsey and Facebook chief operations officer Sheryl Sandberg will testify in an open hearing at the Senate Intelligence Committee next week, the committee’s chairman has confirmed.
Larry Page, chief executive of Google parent company Alphabet, was also invited but has not confirmed his attendance, a committee spokesperson confirmed to TechCrunch.