Latest in Covert Action: Rendition
Yesterday, in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, the Central Intelligence Agency released over 50 documents related to the agency's enhanced interrogation and rendition program during the Bush administration.
I was extremely disappointed to read Professor Amy Zegart’s post regarding the Senate Intelligence Committee’s study of the CIA Detention and Interrogation Program. Not only did it include factually inaccurate statements, it also appeared to blame the Committee for the impediments imposed on the Study by the Executive Branch.
My staff has compiled a detailed description of the inaccurate and misleading statements included in Ms. Zegart’s post, which appears below.
Reports are circulating that Sabrina De Sousa, a former CIA officer, has been arrested in Portugal. De Sousa was among the many CIA employees prosecuted and convicted in absentia by an Italian prosecutor, based on the Abu Omar rendition (from Milan to Egypt). She has denied involvement in that operation, and has garnered considerable attention in the past for urging that blame instead be fixed on senior CIA officials.
Polarization surrounding the SSCI Report (see here for Lawfare’s coverage) has been most pronounced on the efficacy of enhanced interrogation techniques (EITs). The Report and its supporters have proclaimed that EITs never produce useful information. Unfortunately, that pat assertion undermines the possibility of a consensus on future interrogation tactics, including a consensus that rules out coercion.
Here is the long-awaited Executive Summary of the Senate Intelligence Committee's Study of the CIA's Detention and Interrogation Program. The latter includes in a single file a foreword authored by Senator Feinstein, as well as the Study's findings and conclusions.
Ahmed Abu Khattala is not the first person to be whisked onto a ship in the Middle East by U.S. forces, interrogated aboard, and then dropped in a U.S. court. There are some recent famous cases, of course, but there are also some older ones---one of which, in particular, may have precedential value for the coming litigation over Abu Khattala's capture and interrogation.
Senator Feinstein’s remarkable floor statement yesterday has thrown further fuel onto an already volatile mix of intelligence and oversight issues related to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence’s detention and interrogation report. Putting the controversy both outside and inside the SSCI about the substance of the report aside for now, the basic facts as Sen.
Last night Jack highlighted certain parts of Caroline Krass's answers to the Additional Prehearing Questions that the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence posed to her.
Clive Walker of the University of Leeds writes in with the following update on national security law news from Britain:
I have posted previously about a criminal investigation in Poland targeting the former head of Poland's intelligence service, based on his alleged cooperation in establishing a CIA black site on Polish territory. It appears now that charges will be dropped.