Under Bill C-51, you risk becoming a “terrorist” with no due process, when your actions are based on the desire to help address long-standing injustices, to make life better for people.
In my view, efforts to stop young people from going to Syria will fail if their legitimate concerns are treated as a need to “re-program” their thinking. Many of them are responding to a long history of injustices in the Middle East, the actions of “Westerners”.
Danish filmmaker Nagieb Khaja is determined to understand why young Western Muslim men are abandoning their countries and heading to fight in Syria. So he embedded himself with the group Jabhat al Nusra, an al-Qaeda ally in the Syrian civil war.
Nagieb Khaja’s film is an important contribution to the debate on Bill C-51.
It will help
formulate right responses to “terrorists`
combat the propaganda.
I am afraid that the programs to “educate“ young people so they don`t join the “terrorists“ will be a classic “blame the other guy” scenario.
We need, instead, to see and accept our share of the responsibility – – our contribution to the situation. Maybe then we can find solutions.
Try and UNDERSTAND WHY people go to Syria to join the combat – – the Western contribution to the serious injustices perpetrated over decades. In the name of oil and gas appropriation in the Middle East.
Nagieb Khaja, filmmaker, interviewed by Anna Maria Tremonti, CBC Radio, The Current.
The interview and Nagieb’s 25-minute film are especially important in combating the propaganda.
NOTE: if you are supportive of what the Privacy Commissioner says, you might take a minute – – go to the above URL and enter a simple, short message, that’s all it takes. Daniel Therrien needs to be known and supported – – Harper will not like what he wrote.
UPDATE: Daniel Therrien and Elizabeth May, articulate and informed MP and Leader of the Green Party of Canada, are both being blocked from making presentations to the Parliamentary Committee hearings that are part of the legislative process.
By Daniel Therrien
Daniel Therrien is Privacy Commissioner of Canada.
The debate over the federal government’s new antiterrorism bill is raising profound questions about the tension between privacy and security.
Most Canadians would agree that terrorism represents a growing threat and that we must respond with appropriate national security measures when new threats arise. But at what cost?
In my view, Bill C-51, in its current form, would fail to provide Canadians with what they want and expect: legislation that protects both their safety and their privacy. As proposed, it does not strike the right balance.
The scale of information-sharing between government departments and agencies proposed in this bill is unprecedented. The new powers that would be created are excessive and the privacy safeguards proposed are seriously deficient.
All Canadians – not just terrorism suspects – will be caught in this web. Bill C-51 opens the door to collecting, analyzing and potentially keeping forever the personal information of all Canadians in order to find the virtual needle in the haystack. To my mind, that goes too far.
This is really about big data, which relies on massive amounts of information that can be analyzed algorithmically to spot trends, predict behaviours and make connections. The implications for privacy are serious – especially when we are talking about the highly sensitive information Canadians entrust to their government.
The legislation would allow for Canadians’ personal information to be shared if it is deemed “relevant” to the detection of new security threats. That’s an extremely broad standard that suggests the bar has been set far too low.
In this way, the bill would provide 17 federal government agencies with almost limitless powers to monitor and profile ordinary Canadians, with a view to identifying security threats among them. The end result is that national security agencies would potentially be aware of all interactions all Canadians have with their government. That would include, for example, a person’s tax information and details about a person’s business and vacation travel.
While the potential to know virtually everything about everyone may well identify some new threats, the loss of privacy is clearly excessive. In a country governed by the rule of law, it should not be left for national security and other government agencies to determine the limits of their own powers.
We need to create clear and reasonable standards for what personal information may be collected, shared, used and kept. We also need to ensure appropriate oversight and review. Currently, 14 of the 17 agencies that will receive information under the proposed law are not subject to independent oversight.
Either a new review body should be created or the mandate of existing review bodies should be expanded. I would also recommend a system that includes a separate parliamentary review body.
Existing review bodies also need permission to share information with each other, which is not currently the case, and judicial recourse should be available to those who believe personal information has been collected, used, disclosed or retained improperly.
National security agencies have an important and difficult role to play in protecting us from terrorist threats – and I believe they strive to do their work in a way that respects human rights.
That being said, history has shown us that serious rights abuses can occur in the name of national security. A commission of inquiry, for example, confirmed that national security information-sharing led to the torture of Syrian Canadian Maher Arar, while revelations by U.S. whistleblower Edward Snowden have shown how pervasive government surveillance programs can become.
Bill C-51 requires significant changes. I have sent the parliamentary committee reviewing it a submission outlining my concerns along with a series of recommendations, and I would welcome the opportunity to speak with parliamentarians about my concerns in the near future.
I hope the government will listen to the concerns being raised – not just by me, but by many eminent Canadians – and that it amends Bill C-51 to ensure it respects our privacy rights.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
I submitted “COMMENT” as follows. Maybe I should have just made a short statement in support of the Privacy Commissioner?
1. Terrorism is the terrorizing and killing of CIVILIANS, not of soldiers. If we are at war with another country, the killing of their soldiers or ours, is not called terrorism.
The Government and media are irresponsible in the use of a word that they know hits the emotional button of fear.
2. When the label “terrorist” is applied, Government & Police immediately see themselves as OUTSIDE the Rule of Law. They believe they cannot be held accountable for the breaking of laws, a lesson from the Omar Khadr case.
The Rule of Law requires that people cannot be held indefinitely without charge, due process (a fair trial), and torture is definitely illegal.
Khadr was held 10 years without trial. He was tortured. The U.S. Senate Report on Torture (Dec 2014), and all the earlier documentation make denial impossible.
NO ONE has been held to account. Other countries got their citizens out of Guantanamo. They prob knew they might face prosecution if they did not. They, like Canada, are signatory to the Internat’l Law. Canada was the only western democracy that did not get citizens out of Guantanamo, a known place of torture.
The Harper Conservatives do not want the “anti-terrorism” machinery to be subject to oversight. No kidding!
3. March 14, a day of protest against C-51. You better be there!
4. It’s not hard to figure out why some young people join ISIS. Just ONE example. In 2010 many joined social media groups related to the Khadr case – they KNOW what was done to Khadr by “Westerners”. Truly depraved and highly illegal behaviour. Yes, “Westerners” are beasts. Torture AND unprovoked and illegal war on Iraq (2003).
Canadians are “Westerners”; Govt policy has rendered us indistinguishable from American military/CIA. A horrid history of deposing democratically-elected leaders, supporting foul regimes, the arming of anyone who wants to buy weapons. People understand “humanitarian” and “fighting for democracy” mean “appropriation of oil & gas rights”.
These young people are smart enough to figure out that when we drop bombs that are routinely killing women and children, maiming, turning homes and communities into piles of rubble, destroying the environment – these are what WE define as terrorist acts.
They are not so easily propagandized – – our Govt is not only doing “nice” Canadian kind of things.
If someone fires a bullet at a Canadian soldier on Canadian soil, as some kind of retribution for what has been done in the Middle East, why damn those terrorists! I think there are many who see through the double standard.
5. I think I might be capable of hate, if anyone did to my son what was done to Omar Khadr. It would be helpful if we were able to put ourselves into the shoes of people who we have helped terrorize.
It is as likely that many of the young who go to Syria to join ISIS are idealists, as they are terrorists. (“Freedom fighter” is probably a more accurate word than “terrorist”.)
ExxonMobil is the operator of the Hibernia oil project off Newfoundland’s east coast. CBC
NOTE: the Atlantic Accord under which the R&D money was to go to the Province has been in place since 1985, for 25 years. Would they not have known about it?
ALSO – there’s the list of other even more egregious awards made to corporations under NAFTA. Now, if the other trade deals go through, we will be paying even more of these “awards”.
And they wonder why there is social unrest?! I’d like to place some balls in a vice.
An international trade tribunal has ordered Ottawa to pay ExxonMobil and another oil company $17.3 million, following a complaint that the companies were required to spend money in Newfoundland and Labrador on research and development.
The oil companies fought the federal government in a trade challenge brought under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
The International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes made the decision through a recent tribunal, about three years after the two U.S. companies had successfully argued their NAFTA challenge, reported a trade dispute journal Investment Arbitration Reporter. The text of the decision has not yet been made public.
Under the terms of the Atlantic Accord, a federal-provincial agreement on oil development first negotiated in 1985, oil companies are required to support petroleum-focused research and development in Newfoundland and Labrador, as part of its local benefits package.
ExxonMobil is the operator of the Hibernia project, the first oilfield off eastern Newfoundland to go into production. Murphy Oil owns a minority stake in the project.
Scott Sinclair, a senior research fellow with the Canadian Centre of Policy Alternatives, thought little of the NAFTA challenge.
“I think it’s a story of corporate bullying,” he told CBC News.
“You have one of the most powerful and profitable corporations in the world, ExxonMobil, using NAFTA to defeat the purpose of a fairly modest and sensible regional economic development measure put in place by the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador.”
But veteran Toronto-based trade lawyer Lawrence Herman said the case sends a clear message.
“It means governments have to be very sensitive to the need to avoid giving benefits to local providers of goods and services in one way or another,” he said.
Unless the governments of Canada and Newfoundland and Labrador agree to change the R&D legislation, Ottawa could be on the hook for continued damages. The federal government is responsible because NAFTA is an agreement between sovereign nations.
Is a clinical trial testing homeopathic treatment for ADHD a waste of time and money? (The Associated Press//Josh Reynolds)
RESPONSE:
I wish to add a note of personal experience, which might be helpful. It’s about the placebo effect and falls into the mind-body connection.
Words are important. Choosing the word “placebo” to describe an effect places restrictions on the ability of research to get at the truth of what is happening. Our allopathic medical vocabulary does not have a word for a particular phenomenon – – “placebo effect” is inaccurate and sometimes used to dismiss. (I am happy to see that Heather Boon is trying to understand, rather than dismiss.)
The following is my experience and interpretation of it, to illustrate the point.
It is not about Attention Deficit specifically (the interview arose in that context). It is about the placebo effect in the context of homeopathy and medicine in general. (As I understand it, the study by Dr. Boon is about trying to make sense of input from people whose experience is not explained by conventional medical wisdom.)
My experience:
After a weekend of the worst flu, or so I thought, on the Monday I was able to get out of bed. The flu symptoms (fever, chills, aching bones) were replaced by a stabbing pain in my side, but I could get up and do things. Late in the day on Wednesday I decided I had to go to the walk-in clinic because the pain was not going away or decreasing. (I do not use Tylenol or other forms of pain-killers.)
The doctor took an x-ray. At the point when he left the room to fetch it, the pain noticeably and abruptly came to an end. There was a kind of finality to it; it was not going to return. The pain did not just lessen, it was over, abruptly.
I kind of freaked out, thinking “Oh My God, the pain was all in my head. It was psychosomatic. The doctor is going to come back and tell me that the x-ray shows nothing wrong.”
Hence, you may understand that I was very relieved when he came back with the x-ray and said, “You have a large volume of fluid on your lung.” To me the diagnosis was: my mental health is fine!
I won’t go into the details of subsequent serious blunders in the medical profession whereby the first of two thoracenteses to remove fluid did not take place for another 5 days.
WHAT IS NOTABLE: presumably it was the large amount of fluid that was causing the stabbing and relentless pain. It stopped abruptly after the x-ray was taken. I had taken no pain medication, nor had any other medical intervention. Not once in the following days and months did the pain return.
MEDICAL INTERPRETATION: I wish to make the point that if I had taken a pain-killer, the allopathic medical paradigm would say absolutely that the pain-killer stopped the pain. Had I been given a placebo pain-killer, a scientific medical researcher would have said that I succumbed to the placebo effect.
To my understanding, as explained below, there is a third alternative, but it is excluded from consideration by our creative inability to generate possibilities. The exclusion is exacerbated by the fact that we don’t have a word in the scientific vocabulary to describe the particular phenomenon.
A BIT OF BACKGROUND: I understand things thus: a few years earlier I came to the conclusion that I have an inner being, so to speak. I went through the rational process of trying to understand (a review of related experiences) the relationship between the conscious me and my sub-conscious self. My conclusion was that my sub-conscious self has always been there and has always fought to try and protect the whole self. I just had to learn to work with, and to trust the inner part of my being.
I made a conscious decision to always try to be attuned to information that might be coming from the inner self, to recognize that the direction provided will most likely be better informed than decisions I might make which are processed only by my conscious “rational faculty” (prefrontal lobe).
A side note: In time I think it likely that we will refer not to the “conscious and sub-conscious selves” but rather to the “ conscious and HYPO-conscious selves”.
One further point: I understand my body as being a dynamic system. All dynamic systems have feedback loops to inform whether the system is stable. If the feedback indicates that the system is getting out-of-balance, and if the response to the feedback is timely and actually addresses the CAUSE (as opposed to a SYMPTOM) of the disequilibrium, the system (in this case our body) can be returned to balance (health). (“dis-ease” becomes “ease”)
SO WHAT HAPPENED IN THE CASE OF THE PAIN THAT STOPPED FOR NO APPARENT REASON?
The only explanation I can see is the mind-body connection. The inner part of my being KNOWS that I will defer to it, if I can discern what it is telling me. I have never waivered from that, since I decided that that is the way “I” work.
The inner part of my being cannot just tap me on the shoulder and say, “Oh, by the way …”. It cannot just leave me a note saying, “You need to get to a doctor. Things are kind of serious in here. We need outside help.”
The inner self has to find some way to convey information to the conscious part of the self.
You could think of it as a morse code, SOS. I responded appropriately (eventually! – – it took from Monday to Wednesday to “get the message”). My inner self knows that I am committed to working with it (her?!). There was no further need for the pain and so it stopped. I think that some people would describe this as the mind-body connection.
As it turned out, I was eventually diagnosed with tuberculosis. It was identified at an early stage, before becoming contagious. I was able to work with the Director of Tuberculosis Control for Saskatchewan, an allopathic doctor, and a naturopathic doctor.
“I”, with assistance, overcame the tuberculosis without the use of conventional TB drugs. (I believe, along with the Centre for Disease Control, that organisms quickly evolve to become resistant to drug protocols. The CDC uses the example of antibiotics. Our current practice of trying to combat organisms with stronger and stronger drugs is irrational, from a number of perspectives.)
I tell you my story because it might also be an explanation for some of the people whose experience is that homeopathic care improved their condition.
(I know there is a difference between homeopathy and naturopathy)
I could say that the Naturopathic Doctor “cured” me. The question we focused on was: why did my immune system not fend off the TB organism? What was weakening it? After all, the figure most often used is that 30% of the population is walking around with the TB organism. People often don’t know they are carrying the TB organism because their immune system simply keeps it in check. So why wasn’t my immune system doing the same? What was weakening it?
To say that the Naturopathic Doctor cured me ignores the role of my inner being. It (she) devised an early warning alert. It is plausible that if the mind-body connection in my case had atrophied through non-use, the TB organism would have continued to multiply to the point where I had a contagious case. There would then have been no option but the drug protocol. And the drugs would have been credited with curing me. “I” would have been disempowered instead of becoming more empowered.
It is party, party time for Larry K and others: The Nuke Waste Mgmt Organization is taking leave from Saskatchewan! The Committee for Future Generations won the battles at Pinehouse and English River.
NWMO announced today, they are pulling out of the last community, Creighton. (Their reason for leaving is a cover-up. They were beat by community opposition, once the information started flowing into the community.)
I wonder what the bill was for trying to establish the Deep Geological Repository in northern Sask?!
Jonathon Naylor / Flin Flon Reminder
March 3, 2015 03:06 PM Updated: March 4, 2015 04:13 PM
Canada’s nuclear waste won’t be coming to Creighton.
The Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) announced Tuesday morning that the geology around the community cannot safely accommodate an underground waste repository.
“The studies show that there is limited potential to meet safety requirements of the project in the Creighton area,” Kathryn Shaver, vice-president of site selection for NWMO, wrote in a letter to the Town of Creighton.
“In light of these findings, the NWMO will now conclude studies in your community. Safety, security and protection of people and the environment are central to the siting process, and it is important that we are guided by these findings concerning geoscientific suitability.”
The decision stemmed from geological work NWMO carried out on land near Creighton last year.
NWMO announced that Schreiber, Ontario, has also been removed from consideration because of geological concerns.
Shaver thanked both communities.
“The NWMO is grateful for the opportunity to work and learn with the people of Creighton and Schreiber,” Shaver said in a news release. “These communities should be proud of all they’ve done to help advance this important national infrastructure project.”
For Creighton, the news caps a regional conversation that divided many residents.
Creighton never applied to host the repository, only to engaged in a years-long learning process around it.
The town joined that process in late 2010, several months after town councillors visited a NWMO information kiosk.
Council discussed the concept at length and ultimately toured a Pickering, Ontario, nuclear power facility where radioactive waste is currently stored on site.
Over the following four years, NWMO took part in a series of public presentations and community meetings designed to educate residents on what is known – and not known – about nuclear waste storage.
It will take several more years of technical, scientific and social study and assessments, and more engagement with interested regions, before NWMO confirms a repository site.
Still in the running are the Ontario communities of Blind River, Central Huron, Elliot Lake, Hornepayne, Huron-Kinloss, Ignace, Manitouwadge, South Bruce and White River.
The repository is not expected to be operational until 2035 at the earliest. The project carries an estimated price tag as high as $24 billion.
Following: two separate conversations regarding Paul Craig Roberts.
I don’t know what to think. Neither does Jim:
I followed Roberts works for some years and was considering bringing him to speak in Toronto but something in my gut said, leave him on his own, maybe he has a hidden agenda….time will tell.
From: Sandra Finley
Thanks Bennett. What’s going on?! One would have thought that Paul Craig Roberts would have been a NeoCon himself!
He hits hard against what the U.S. is, and has been doing, in the world. Your email caused me to read a couple book reviews of Roberts’ two books that are mentioned. Is this guy real? And googled – – there’s a whack of youtubes.
From my perspective, that which Paul Roberts describes about the U.S. (regardless of whether there are some things one might question) – – the basics of what he is saying is equally advanced in Canada.
It’s why I am doing as much as possible to help spread the word about Bill C-51. It’ll be a frosty day in hell if we can’t stop it.
It is well-known that extensive surveillance machinery is already in place (The Snowden leaks, the interviews of Glenn Greenwald, etc). Bill C-51 adds secret police and further reduces the rights of citizens.
I am concerned that the public debate doesn’t seem to be including another very worrisome feature of C-51: the impact it would have (If passed) on the ability of the Government, Police and Corporate elites to operate outside the Rule of Law (I say “corporate” because torture for example was “out-sourced” to Lockheed Martin Corporation. Most people know about Halliburton, Blackwater, etc – – the corporate players in what’s going on) These elites, including Harper, already hold the view that the Laws of the land do not apply to them. C-51 takes it a step further. Very dangerous, police-state territory we are in.
Our situation is as hard to believe as it is to believe what the U.S. might be doing vis-a-vis Russia. They have become a rogue state. Nice when it’s your next-door neighbour!! And they’ve got the quislings in Canada eating out of their hands.
Can this all be true? With all the propaganda out there, it’s hard to sort out truth from fiction.
Have to be wary. It’s what the Nazis relied on – – the things that were being done by the Govt were outrageous. Some people couldn’t, or did not want to believe they could be true. I’ve forgotten which of Hitler’s men made that statement that they could do the unbelievable for that reason – people wouldn’t believe they could be doing it.
/Sandra
—–Original Message—–
Subject: The Neoconservative Threat To International Relations
By Paul Craig Roberts
Last summer, sitting with Christopher di Armani in his wonderful garden in Chilliwack, he asked me what I thought a neo-conservative was. I mentioned a few names, the Project for a New American Century and the possibility that
9/11 and the wars and loss of rights at home were likely caused by neo-conservatives. That was a rather unfocused answer. If Christopher is reading this, I will let Paul Craig Roberts, one of Ronald Regan’s cronies, answer the question.
At the plenary session yesterday I addressed the threat that the neoconservative ideology poses to international relations. In this closing session I address whether there are any internal restraints on this policy from the US population and whether there are economic restraints.
Just as 9/11 served to launch Washington’s wars for hegemony in the Middle East, 9/11 served to create the American police state. The Constitution and the civil liberties it protects quickly fell to the accumulation of power in the executive branch that a state of war permitted.
New laws, some clearly pre-prepared such as the PATRIOT Act, executive orders, presidential directives, and Department of Justice memos created an executive authority unaccountable to the US Constitution and to domestic and international law.
Suddenly Americans could be detained indefinitely without cause presented to a court. Habeas corpus, a constitutional protection which prohibits any such detention, has been set aside.
Suddenly people could be tortured into confessions in violation of the right against self-incrimination and in violation of domestic and international laws against torture.
Suddenly Americans and Washington’s closest allies could be spied on indiscriminately without the need of warrants demonstrating cause.
The Obama regime added to the Bush regime’s transgressions the assertion of the right of the executive branch to assassinate US citizens without due process of law.
The police state was organized under a massive new Department of Homeland Security. Almost immediately whistleblower protections, freedom of the press and speech, and protest rights were attacked and reduced.
It was not long before the director of Homeland Security declared that the department’s focus has shifted from Muslim terrorists to “domestic extremists,” an undefined category. Anyone can be swept into this category.
Homes of war protesters were raided and grand juries were convened to investigate the protesters. Americans of Arab descent who donated to charities-even charities on the State Department’s approved list-that aided Palestinian children were arrested and sentenced to prison for “providing material support to terrorism.”
All of this and more, including police brutality, has had a chilling effect on protests against the wars and the loss of civil liberty. The rising protests from the American population and from soldiers themselves that eventually forced Washington to end the Vietnam War have been prevented in the 21st century by the erosion of rights, intimidation, loss of mobility (no-fly list), job dismissal, and other heavy-handed actions inconsistent with a government accountable to law and to the people.
In an important sense, the US has emerged from the “war on terror” as an executive branch dictatorship unconstrained by the media and barely, if at all, constrained by Congress and the federal courts. The lawlessness of the executive branch has spread into governments of Washington’s vassal states and into the Federal Reserve, the International Monetary Fund, and the European Central Bank, all of which violate their charters and operate outside their legal powers.
Jobs offshoring destroyed the American industrial and manufacturing unions.
Their demise and the current attack on the public employee unions has left the Democratic Party financially dependent on the same organized private interest groups as the Republicans. Both parties now report to the same interest groups. Wall Street, the military/security complex, the Israel Lobby, agribusiness, and the extractive industries (oil, mining, timber) control the government regardless of the party in power. These powerful interests all have a stake in American hegemony.
The message is that the constellation of forces preclude internal political change.
Paul Craig Roberts (American) gave this address on Feb 27th to the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow. Scholars from Russia and from around the world, Russian government officials, (were in attendance)…
He could as well be describing what is happening in Canada.
Roberts: Dr. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following. Roberts’ latest books are The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West and How America Was Lost.
I read a few reviews of the 2 books.
There are lots of youtubes by him, looks like they are all highly critical of the U.S.
2. “Terrorism” is being used to mean anything. By definition it is violence aimed at CIVILIAN POPULATIONS. Terrorists kill and terrorize innocent women, children, and men. That is DIFFERENT from the killing of SOLDIERS. If you kill soldiers from a country that is at war with your country, that is NOT an act of terrorism. It goes with the territory.
The Government and Journalists are irresponsible when they plaster the word “terrorism” on events that are not terrorist events. It is an emotional word that creates fear.
3. Decisions about C-51 need to incorporate the factual information that reveals:
The Government and Police clearly believe that the Laws do not apply to them. Which means they believe they cannot be held accountable to the Rule of Law.
Bill C-51 needs to be thrown out, for this reason, too. . . . Read on.
– – – – – – – – –
Bill C-51, the Anti-Terrorism Law
Canadians know by experience what happens when the Government and its Police Force apply the word “terrorist” to a person. Instantly, it puts the Government and Police outside the Rule of Law.
The Laws apply to us, but not to them. Which means that we do not have the Rule of Law. (In a democracy, the rules apply to everyone, regardless of status – – a basic principle of democracy)
Canadians know through more than one example: the Government and Police have become an elite not bound by the Laws.
The Laws in a democracy:
do not allow holding a person in jail without charges being brought against them.
do not allow a person to be held indefinitely without a fair trial – – due process.
trials are open to the public. People are not tried and sentenced in secret.
the Laws do not allow anyone to be tortured.
(Torture is gratuitous violence. Surely no one believes that I will tell the truth if they torture me. If they torture me, I will say whatever they want me to say; all I want is for the pain, humiliation, and fear to stop. Torture is a really dumb, not to mention inhumane and highly illegal strategy. And yet the Harper Government stood by it: give me a break. Note also (below) conclusion #1 of the U.S. Senate Report on Terror, Dec 2014 – – torture was not an effective way of gaining intelligence. Quite the opposite.)
Using just one example of what happens in Canada, a case I am more familiar with than the others: the word “terrorist” was applied to 15-year-old Omar Khadr. (2010-05-11 Omar Khadr, updates from his trial) Which exempted the Government of Stephen Harper and the RCMP from the Rule of Law:
Khadr was held in detention for ten years without charge.
Was there a trial open to the public?
Not when the military and the Government might be held to account – – the torture and the illegality of it at Guantanamo and Bagram is well-known.
There have been no Charges against those who broke the Laws.
Harper simply acted in accordance with the American military / CIA. The U.S. Senate Committee Report on Torture, Senator Dianne Feinstein chair, reported on December 3, 2014:
The CIA’s justification for the use of its enhanced interrogation techniques rested on inaccurate claims of their effectiveness.
The interrogations of CIA detainees were brutal and far worse than the CIA represented to policymakers and others.
The conditions of confinement for CIA detainees were harsher than the CIA had represented to policymakers and others.
The CIA repeatedly provided inaccurate information to the Department of Justice (DOJ), impeding a proper legal analysis of the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program.
The CIA has actively avoided or impeded congressional oversight of the program.
The CIA impeded effective White House oversight and decision-making.
The CIA’s operation and management of the program complicated, and in some cases impeded, the national security missions of other Executive Branch agencies.
The CIA coordinated the release of classified information to the media, including inaccurate information concerning the effectiveness of the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques.
The CIA was unprepared as it began operating its Detention and Interrogation Program more than six months after being granted detention authorities.
The CIA’s management and operation of its Detention and Interrogation Program was deeply flawed throughout the program’s duration, particularly so in 2002 and early 2003.
Two contract psychologists devised the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques and played a central role in the operation, assessments, and management of the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program. By 2005, the CIA had overwhelmingly outsourced operations related to the program.
CIA detainees were subjected to coercive interrogation techniques that had not been approved by the Department of Justice or had not been authorized by CIA Headquarters.
The CIA did not conduct a comprehensive or accurate accounting of the number of individuals it detained, and held individuals who did not meet the legal standard for detention. The CIA’s claims about the number of detainees held and subjected to its enhanced interrogation techniques were inaccurate.
The CIA failed to adequately evaluate the effectiveness of its enhanced interrogation techniques.
The CIA rarely reprimanded or held personnel accountable for serious or significant violations, inappropriate activities, and systematic and individual management failures.
The CIA marginalized and ignored numerous internal critiques, criticisms, and objections concerning the operation and management of the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program.
The CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program was inherently unsustainable and had effectively ended by 2006 due to unauthorized press disclosures, reduced cooperation from other nations, and legal and oversight concerns.
The CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program damaged the United States’ standing in the world, and resulted in other significant monetary and non-monetary costs.
Stephen Harper has not been held to account for the failure to get Khadr out of Guatanamo. Every other western nation removed their citizens from Gitmo – – the torture being done there was well-known. Books were written about it.
Presumably, the leadership of the countries who removed their citizens, Australia for example, understood that they would be acting outside the law, and would therefore be subject to prosecution, if they knowingly left their ctiizens in Gitmo when they KNEW that torture was part of the game.
The reason Stephen Harper could leave Khadr in Guantanamo to my thinking, is that he believes he is above the Rule of Law, that the laws do not apply to him. He believes he will never be held to account for his role in illegal activity.
Aside: I believe that members of the Bush Administration, and others, will eventually be brought to Justice. See the CHRONOLOGY OF INTERNATIONAL EFFORTS TO GET BUSH ARRESTED Arrest George Bush. Rule of Law essential to democracy. The efforts have never stopped.
An interview with Louise Arbour, March 5, 2015 on CBC Radio, The Current, explains the complication that the U.S. is not a signatory to the International Law that established the International Criminal Court (ICC).
I would understand, then, that Bush’s lawyers advised him to cancel out of a talk he was to give in Geneva because he was at risk of being arrested for war crimes in that jurisdiction. He is at lower risk in the U.S. Some “influential” Americans are no longer travelling abroad.
The U.K. and Canada are signatories to the particular international law. I wonder if Justice, the Rule of Law, can be stronger than propaganda and national pride? Spain was behind the prosecution of Pinochet (Chile) for war crimes. Al-Bashir, President of Sudan, who was the driving force behind the prosecution of him? … it would be interesting to review the record – – outside nations versus the nation itself bringing charges against its leaders who bear some responsibility for war crimes.
Media coverage of Bill C-51 talks about secret police and the further reduction in citizen rights.
There should be more effort to help people understand the impact that C-51 would have (if passed) on the ability of the Government, Police and Corporate elites to continue to defy the Rule of Law (I add “Corporate” elites because torture was “out-sourced” to, for example, Lockheed Martin Corporation through its subsidiary Sytex) .
REFERENCE: “Key Finding” above, #13: Two contract psychologists devised the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques and played a central role in the operation, assessments, and management of the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program. By 2005, the CIA had overwhelmingly outsourced operations related to the program.
These elites already hold the view that the Laws of the land do not apply to them. George Bush, Dick Cheney, and Tony Blair can get away with crimes that persons from other (“not developed”) nations are prosecuted for. Why would Canadian leaders NOT think that they can get away with knowingly participating in torture?
C-51 takes the dismantling of democratic principles a step further: there will be none of the checks and balances that are known to be a necessity to prevent abuse of power. C-51 is a power grab by the Prime Minister. Very dangerous, police-state territory we are in.
You may also be interested in: 2013-10-27 Ego – its role in putting democracy to rest. (Ego wants to see the self as “good”. National identity is part of ego. Ego avoids information that conflicts with the perception that Canadians do good things in the world.)
I HIGHLY recommend this video. I would love if every person in Canada and in the U.S. could see it.
. . . violence engaged in by Muslims against the West. (Terrorist) It’s really just a term to legitimize the kind of violence that we do ourselves and de-legitimize the violence that is used against us. …
Alas! I cannot transcribe the whole talk; and I cannot find a transcription on-line.
I transcribed a few excerpts. Which will be a disservice, if it causes some people not to watch the video which contains much, much more.
At about the 12:50 mark:
(In relation to the two incidents (in a Quebec community and the other in Ottawa):
. . . instantaneous injection of the most inflammatory, but also the most meaningless word, in our political lexicon which is terrorism.
Almost instantly, before anybody knew anything about the perpetrators of either event, the media and political class in this country and then in the U.S. and throughout the West all agreed by consensus that both of these attacks were adequately and even necessarily described as being terrorism. There was no discussion, as usual, of what the word means or what an act has to do in order to qualify. It was simply a label instantly that got applied almost reflexively – – – the word is inflammatory . . .
At about the 27:00 mark:
That’s another way of saying that the citizenry has been propagandized. That is the definition of that term, that they have been led to believe pleasant things about their Government that actually is disparate to the reality of what the Government does in the world. And this to me is the crux of the entire Post 9-11 era and the events that we saw this week . . .
I remember really vividly the immediate aftermath of the 9-11 attack … the days and weeks … I was in Manhattan on 9-11 … The prevailing emotion triggered … in the immediate aftermath, not months down the road once the Government began massaging the messaging.
The immediate aftermath was not one of anger or vengeance or sadness. It wasn’t those things. The immediate prevailing emotion was bafflement, shock and surprise. And the question (approx 28:00 mark) that was on almost everybody’s mind is why would somebody possibly want to do this to the United States? Why would somebody have such hatred for Americans that they would be willing to blow themselves up to kill as many people indiscriminately whom they don’t know?
What kind of causes could have led them to that mindset? And this was being asked not rhetorically … most Americans genuinely did not understand the answer.
The U.S. Government knew that it had to provide an answer. Because everyone knows that there was some reason. … (Approx 29:29 mark). The explanation that it ended up providing was one that we now, 12 years later, can scoff at pretty readily, but at the time it was what huge numbers of Americans believed because their Government told them that and the media told them that. … The answer was the reason they hate us isn’t anything we’ve done , perish the thought!, it has nothing to do with anything that we’ve done. The reason they hate us is because we’re so free that they hate us for our freedoms. That was the genuine answer with a straight face of the U.S. Govt and then the U.S. media delivered to the American population. What was so extraordinary about that … it was not difficult at all to find out the reason.
That not only the group that perpetrated the attack but a huge part of the Muslim world had been openly discussing for many, many years. You could have gone and read Muslim newspapers, you could have visited Muslim countries, you could have talked to someone who was Muslim, you could have sought out any of that dialogue. The Grievances were all very clear. They were embedded into the culture for a long time. It wasn’t just things like the U.S. putting troops on … holy soil in Saudi Arabia. It was much more substantial … imposing a sanctions regime on Iraq that killed several hundred thousand Iraqi children or overthrowing their democratically elected leaders and propping up the most heinous despots and tyrants, ones that ruled Egypt and still rule Saudi Arabia or steadfastly supporting militarily, economically and diplomatically the country of Israel as it engages in all sorts of violence against its neighbours in Palestine, Lebanon and elsewhere.
This list of grievances was fully aired in that part of the world and yet, remarkably, Americans didn’t just reject the validity of those grievances, they didn’t reach the conclusion that it didn’t justify the attacks, they literally were completely unaware of the existence of that dialogue from that part of the world. They had no idea that their Government was even doing these things. And that is stunning …
(Greenwald goes on to the situation in Canada.)
At about the 54:00 mark:
(The event in Quebec)
… Whatever terrorism means, and it’s impossible to define, but the one common usage that it typically has, is it requires the deliberate targeting of civilians with violence for political ends. And yet here is somebody who seems to have deliberately avoided targeting civilians (waited two hours in his car for a sildier to target) . . . clearly illegal and unjustified … but how and in what sense is that terrorism? . . . (Ottawa shooter … mentally unstable…
The word terrorism, as significant as it’s become really has no meaning other than
. . . violence engaged in by Muslims against the West. It’s really just a term to legitimize the kind of violence that we do ourselves and de-legitimize the violence that is used against us. …
Alas! It would take far too much time for me to transcribe more from this excellent talk by Glenn Greenwald.
NOTE: I phoned my MP’s office, even though he is a Conservative and is going to vote in support of C-51. All I could hope to do was to shake the confidence in Bill C-51 of the young man with whom I spoke.
Please go to the above Wikipedia URL. There are more tools such as download capability there. The following is a copy, as it was at 5 March 2015, at 01:23.
The 6,000-page report details actions by CIA officials and findings of the study of the Detention and Interrogation Program. On December 9, 2014—eight months after voting to release parts of the report—the SSCI released a 525-page portion that consisted of key findings and an executive summary of the full report. It took five years and $40 million to compile the report.[1] The rest of it remains classified.[2][3][4]
The report details actions by CIA officials, including torturing prisoners, providing misleading or false information about classified CIA programs to the media, impeding government oversight and internal criticism, and mismanaging of the program. It also revealed the existence of previously unknown detainees, that more detainees were subjected to harsher treatment than was previously disclosed, and that more forms of torture were used than previously disclosed. It concluded that torturing prisoners did not help acquire actionable intelligence or gain cooperation from detainees and that the program damaged the United States’ international standing.[5]
Some people, including CIA officials and U.S. Republicans, disputed the report’s interpretations and said it provided an incomplete or inaccurate picture of the program. Others criticized the publishing of the report, citing its potential for damage to the U.S. and the contentious history of its development.
On March 5, 2009, the Senate Intelligence Committee voted 14-1 to open an investigation into the CIA detention and interrogation program.[7] In August 2009, Attorney GeneralEric Holder announced a parallel preliminary criminal investigation into the use of unauthorized interrogation techniques by CIA officials.[7] As a result of the Attorney General’s investigation, the Republican minority on the SSCI concluded that many witnesses were unlikely to participate in the investigation for fear of criminal liability.[8] Citing the Attorney General investigation as their reason, the Republican minority of the SSCI withdrew their participation from the investigation in September 2009.[7][8]
The report was prepared following a review of 6 million pages of documents, cables, emails, and other materials principally provided by the CIA.[5][9][10] An additional 9400 classified documents repeatedly requested by the SSCI were withheld by the White House under a claim of executive privilege.[8][9] Despite the initial expectation that interviews would be used, no formal interviews or hearings were conducted in the preparation of the report.[8][11] The lack of interviews and hearings was one of the chief complaints of the Republican minority on SSCI,[8] and contrasts with the 2008 Senate Armed Services Committee inquiry into the treatment of detainees in US military custody which conducted 70 in-person interviews, submitted written questions to 200 people, and had two hearings.[11] The CIA estimated that approximately $40 million in personnel time and resources was spent assisting the investigation, including hiring additional staff to review documents prior to presenting them to the Committee and establishing a separate secure facility and computer network for CIA and Committee staff to use during the review.[10]
The final report was approved on December 13, 2012, by a vote of 9–6, with seven Democrats, one Independent (Angus King), and one Republican (Susan Collins) voting in favor of publication and six Republicans voting in opposition.[7][8] On April 3, 2014, the SSCI voted 11–3 to submit a revised version of the executive summary, findings, and recommendations of the report for declassification analysis in preparation for future public release.[7][8] After eight months, involving contentious negotiations about what details should remain classified,[2][3] the revised executive summary, findings, and recommendations were made public with some redactions on December 9, 2014.[7][8]
Information about the cooperation of foreign agencies with the CIA has been redacted from the report. The British chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee stated they would request access to anything taken out of the report at the request of British agencies.[12][13]
Concurrently with the public release, the six members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence that voted against the report released their own 167-page report criticizing both the process and the conclusions of the report approved by the majority.[8]
On December 17, 2013, Sen. Mark Udall (D-CO) revealed the existence of a secret internal review conducted by the CIA that was consistent with the Senate’s report but conflicted with the CIA’s official response to the report.[14] In January 2014, CIA officials claimed that the Intelligence Committee had accessed review documents and removed them from CIA facilities in 2010 without CIA authorization.[15] In March 2014, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), chairwoman of the Intelligence Committee, confirmed that copies of portions of the review had been removed and transferred to a safe in the Senate’s Hart Office Building. She argued that the action was necessary to protect the documents from the CIA, which had destroyed videotapes depicting brutal interrogation methods in 2005.[16]
During an “extraordinary”[17][18] 45-minute speech on March 11, 2014, Feinstein said the CIA unlawfully searched the Intelligence Committee’s computers to determine how the committee staff obtained the review documents. Feinstein also said that the CIA’s acting general counsel, later identified as Robert Eatinger, requested the FBI conduct a criminal inquiry into the committee staff’s behavior. She said she believed that the request was “a potential effort to intimidate [Intelligence Committee] staff.”[19][20] Eatinger had been one of two lawyers who approved the destruction of video tapes in 2005,[21][22] and Feinstein added that Eatinger was mentioned by name over 1,600 times in the Committee’s report. CIA director John O. Brennan denied the hacking allegations, stating “When the facts come out on this, I think a lot of people who are claiming that there has been this tremendous sort of spying and monitoring and hacking will be proved wrong.”[21]
On July 31, 2014, the CIA confirmed that it had improperly gained access to the Senate Intelligence Committee’s computer network.[23] A Justice Department spokesman confirmed that they would not be pursuing charges in the hacking incident.[24] An internal review panel appointed by Brennan defended the searches, noting “that they were lawful and in some cases done at the behest of John O. Brennan, the C.I.A. director.”[25]
The CIA’s justification for the use of its enhanced interrogation techniques rested on inaccurate claims of their effectiveness.
The interrogations of CIA detainees were brutal and far worse than the CIA represented to policymakers and others.
The conditions of confinement for CIA detainees were harsher than the CIA had represented to policymakers and others.
The CIA repeatedly provided inaccurate information to the Department of Justice (DOJ), impeding a proper legal analysis of the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program.
The CIA has actively avoided or impeded congressional oversight of the program.
The CIA impeded effective White House oversight and decision-making.
The CIA’s operation and management of the program complicated, and in some cases impeded, the national security missions of other Executive Branch agencies.
The CIA coordinated the release of classified information to the media, including inaccurate information concerning the effectiveness of the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques.
The CIA was unprepared as it began operating its Detention and Interrogation Program more than six months after being granted detention authorities.
The CIA’s management and operation of its Detention and Interrogation Program was deeply flawed throughout the program’s duration, particularly so in 2002 and early 2003.
Two contract psychologists devised the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques and played a central role in the operation, assessments, and management of the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program. By 2005, the CIA had overwhelmingly outsourced operations related to the program.
CIA detainees were subjected to coercive interrogation techniques that had not been approved by the Department of Justice or had not been authorized by CIA Headquarters.
The CIA did not conduct a comprehensive or accurate accounting of the number of individuals it detained, and held individuals who did not meet the legal standard for detention. The CIA’s claims about the number of detainees held and subjected to its enhanced interrogation techniques were inaccurate.
The CIA failed to adequately evaluate the effectiveness of its enhanced interrogation techniques.
The CIA rarely reprimanded or held personnel accountable for serious or significant violations, inappropriate activities, and systematic and individual management failures.
The CIA marginalized and ignored numerous internal critiques, criticisms, and objections concerning the operation and management of the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program.
The CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program was inherently unsustainable and had effectively ended by 2006 due to unauthorized press disclosures, reduced cooperation from other nations, and legal and oversight concerns.
The CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program damaged the United States’ standing in the world, and resulted in other significant monetary and non-monetary costs.
This section is in a list format that may be better presented using prose.You can help by converting this section to prose, if appropriate. Editing help is available.(December 2014)
The CIA had force fed some prisoners orally and/or anally in order to establish “total control over the detainee.”[26]
The Committee found that “[a]t least five CIA detainees were subjected to ‘rectal rehydration’ or rectal feeding without documented medical necessity.”[27]
At least one prisoner was “diagnosed with chronic hemorrhoids, an anal fissure and symptomatic rectal prolapse,” symptoms normally associated with a violent rape.[28]
CIA officials Scott Miller and James Pavitt were told that rectal exams of at least two prisoners had been conducted with “excessive force.”[28]
Threats to rape and murder were made against the children or family members of prisoners.[5]:4[29][30]
At least four prisoners with injuries to their legs (two with broken feet, one with a sprained ankle and one with an amputated leg) were forced to stand on their injuries.[29]
Prisoners were told that they would be killed. (For example: one prisoner was told “We can never let the world know what I have done to you”, another was told that the only way he would be allowed to leave the prison would be in a coffin.)[29]
One CIA interrogator who was subsequently sent home early threatened a prisoner with a gun and power drill and played Russian Roulette with him.[28]
Several prisoners almost died and became completely unresponsive or nearly drowned during waterboarding.[29]
Abu Zubaydah‘s eye was so badly damaged during his time in prison that it was surgically removed.[29]
Prisoners were kept awake for over one week (180 hours) causing at least five to experience “disturbing” hallucinations.[29]
One prisoner was psychologically traumatized to the point of being “a broken man” but CIA operatives stopped short of “complete[ly] break[ing] [him].”[29]
Prisoners were forced to use buckets for toilets.[28] As punishment, the waste bucket could be removed from a prisoner’s cell.[31]
A report by the Federal Bureau of Prisons found that “they [had] never been in a facility where individuals were so sensory deprived i.e., constant white noise, no talking, everyone in the dark, with the guards wearing a light on their head when they collected and escorted a detainee to an interrogation cell, detainees constantly being shackled to the wall or floor, and the starkness of each cell (concrete and bars). There is nothing like this in the Federal Bureau of Prisons… detainees were not being treated… humanely.”[28]
Janat Gul was tortured for months based on false accusations made by an informant.[5][28]
One prisoner was placed in a box the size of a coffin for over 11 days and was also placed for 29 hours in a box 21 inches (53 cm) wide, 2.5 feet (76 cm) deep and 2.5 feet (76 cm) high.[32]
CIA interrogators used unauthorized forms of torture such as forcing a prisoner to stand with his hand over his head for 2 1/2 days, putting a pistol next to his head and bathing him with a stiff brush.[32]
One detainee was subjected to “ice water baths” and 66 hours of standing sleep deprivation. He was later released as the CIA had mistaken his identity.[33]
Of the 119 known detainees, at least 39 were tortured by the CIA.[5] In at least six cases, the CIA used torture on suspects before evaluating whether they would be willing to cooperate.[5][29]
The CIA deliberately planted false stories with members of the media and claimed that the stories had been leaked (although CIA officials never investigated the leaks because they had themselves planned to leak the false and misleading information).[5]:4[34]
The CIA had used waterboarding at locations where previously it claimed it had not (e.g. at the Salt Pit).[34]
The CIA lied in official documents to government officials about the value of information extracted from prisoners subjected to torture (e.g. stating that information extracted from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed during torture had allowed for the capture of Riduan Isamuddin).[29]
Despite contrary statements made by the CIA’s Director, Michael V. Hayden, the CIA did employ individuals who “had engaged in inappropriate detainee interrogations, had workplace anger management issues, and had reportedly admitted to sexual assault.”[29]
The CIA provided false information to the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel about the methods of interrogation it was using against prisoners.[35]
CIA Deputy Director Philip Mudd deliberately lied to Congress about the program and stated that “We either get out and sell, or we get hammered, which has implications beyond the media. [C]ongress reads it, cuts our authorities, mess up our budget.”[35]
The report found that the CIA held at least 119 detainees during the course of the interrogation program, more than the 98 previously reported to Congress.[5][36]
An email cited in the report and prepared by a subordinate indicates that CIA Director Michael Hayden instructed that out-of-date information be used in briefing Congress so that fewer than 100 detainees would be reported.[5][36]
At least 26 of the 119 prisoners (22%) held by the CIA were subsequently found by the CIA to have been improperly detained,[5] many having also experienced torture.[29][36] Under the Memorandum of Notification signed by President George W. Bush to establish the CIA detention program, only persons who “pose a continuing, serious threat of violence or death to U.S. persons and interests or planning terrorist activities” were eligible for detention.[5] Two innocent people were jailed and tortured based solely on allegations from another prisoner who fabricated information after having been tortured.[36] Two former intelligence sources were jailed and tortured by accident.[5]:133[36] One mentally challenged man was held by the CIA in order to persuade family members to provide information.[5]:12[36] Among the 26 individuals who were acknowledged by the CIA to have been improperly detained, only three were released after less than one month in CIA custody, while most were confined for several months.[5]
The report noted a November 2001 memorandum circulated within the CIA by its attorneys titled “Hostile Interrogations: Legal Considerations for C.I.A. Officers”. In it, the lawyers argued that prosecution for torture could be avoided if said torture “resulted in saving thousands of lives.”[26]
Some CIA personnel found the torture revolting and asked to be transferred from facilities where torture was being conducted. Some also questioned whether such activities could continue and were told that the senior officials in the CIA had approved these techniques.[29][34]
The CIA kept incomplete records of their detainees, so it is unclear if 119 is a complete count.[36]
The report’s scope is limited to the abuse of detainees directly in CIA custody and does not include detainees tortured at the behest of the CIA after being extraordinarily rendered.[38]
Contractors that developed the “enhanced interrogation techniques” (John “Bruce” Jessen and James Mitchell), received US$81 million for their services, out of an original contract worth more than US$180 million. NBC News identified the contractors, who were referred to in the report via pseudonyms, as Mitchell, Jessen & Associates. Jessen was a senior psychologist at the Defense Department who taught special forces how to resist and endure torture (SERE).[39] The report states that neither man had prior knowledge of Al Qaeda, nor were they practised interrogators,[40] but they nevertheless “developed the list of enhanced interrogation techniques and personally conducted interrogations of some of the CIA’s most significant detainees using those techniques. The contractors also evaluated whether the detainees’ psychological state allowed for continued use of the techniques, even for some detainees they themselves were interrogating or had interrogated.”
The contractors developed a list of 20 forms of torture for use against detainees, which was cut down to 10 since some forms were considered too harsh. The list included waterboarding, sleep deprivation and stress positions. John Rizzo, the CIA acting general counsel who met with the contractors, described them as “sadistic and terrifying” in his book Company Man.[41] Mitchell and Jessen were formerly SERE psychologists who have been accused of “reverse-engineering” SERE techniques for use against detainees.[42]
According to the report, the Detention and Interrogation Program cost well over $300 million in non-personnel costs.[5]:16 This included funding for the CIA to construct and maintain detention facilities, including two facilities costing millions of dollars that were never used, in part due to host country political concerns. “To encourage governments to clandestinely host CIA detention sites, or to increase support for existing sites, the CIA provided millions of dollars in cash payments to foreign government officials.”[5]:16
The report states that in 2006, the value of the CIA’s base contract with the company formed by the psychologists with all options exercised was in excess of $180 million; “the contractors received $81 million prior to the contract’s termination in 2009. In 2007, the CIA provided a multi-year indemnification agreement to protect the company and its employees from legal liability arising out of the program. The CIA has since paid out more than $1 million pursuant to the agreement.”[5]:11
President Barack Obama said the report had revealed a “troubling program” and that “We will rely on all elements of our national power, including the power and example of our founding ideals. That is why I have consistently supported the declassification of today’s report. No nation is perfect. But one of the strengths that makes America exceptional is our willingness to openly confront our past, face our imperfections, make changes and do better.”[43]
CIA Director John O. Brennan agreed with the current administration’s policy prohibiting enhanced interrogation techniques[44] and admitted that the program had had “shortcomings.”[32] He disagreed with the Committee’s conclusion that information obtained through torture could have been obtained by other means, and said it is unknowable whether other interrogation approaches would have yielded the same information.[44] In supporting his views, Brennan also released a 136-page declassified version of an official CIA response and critique of the torture report written in June 2013.[44]
Three former CIA Directors, George Tenet, Porter Goss, Michael V. Hayden, as well as three CIA Deputy Directors, wrote an opinion editorial in The Wall Street Journal in response to the release of the Senate Intelligence Committee report. They criticized the report as “a partisan attack on the agency that has done the most to protect America after the 9/11 attacks.” They said that the CIA’s interrogation program was invaluable to the capture of al Qaeda operatives and the disruption of al Qaeda’s efforts and also stated that, contrary to the Senate Intelligence Committee’s findings, “there is no doubt that information provided by the totality of detainees in CIA custody […] was essential to bringing bin Laden to justice.” Additionally, they wrote that the CIA remained within the interrogation techniques authorized by the DOJ; that the CIA did not mislead the DOJ, White House or Congress; and that the threat of a “‘ticking time bomb’ scenario” context was critical to understanding the program.[45] Additionally, they established a website to defend the actions of the CIA.[46]
Former Vice PresidentDick Cheney, who was in office during the events discussed in the report, said the report’s criticisms of the CIA were “a bunch of hooey” and that harsh interrogation tactics were “absolutely, totally justified”.[47] He further said that he did not feel that the CIA misled him about the techniques used or the value of the information obtained from them, and that “if I had to do it over again, I would”.[47]
John Yoo, author of the Torture Memos, criticized the report as a partisan attack on American intelligence agencies and defended his belief that the CIA was legally allowed to use interrogation techniques that did not cause injury. He also stated that “if the facts on which [he] based [his] advice were wrong, [he] would be willing to change [his] opinion of the interrogation methods.” In an interview in CNN’s Fareed Zakaria GPS, Yoo said that the harsh treatments outlined in the report could violate anti-torture laws, stating that “[i]f these things happened as described in the report […] they were not supposed to be done.” He voiced a similar opinion in a C-SPAN interview, saying that using the techniques cumulatively could violate anti-torture statute.[48][49]
The Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that they would not be reopening any investigations into the use of torture, noting that they “did not find any new information that they had not previously considered in reaching their determination”.[50] The Department of Justice had launched two investigations overseen by John Durham in 2009 that did not result in charges.[51] The rationale for the lack of charges has not been disclosed; in response to a FOIA lawsuit, the Obama administration argued that the rationale should be kept secret because “disclosing them could affect the candor of law enforcement deliberations about whether to bring criminal charges.”.[52] After the release of the Senate’s report, several news outlets noted that “the only CIA employee connected to its interrogation program to go to prison” was John Kiriakou, the whistle-blower who was “prosecuted for providing information to reporters”.[53][54][55]
Senate Minority LeaderMitch McConnell (R-KY) and Senator Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) opposed the study saying that they believe “it will present serious consequences for U.S. national security” and that the study was ideologically motivated. They also asserted that the program “developed significant intelligence that helped us identify and capture important al-Qa’ida terrorists, disrupt their ongoing plotting, and take down Usama Bin Ladin“.[43] Senators Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Jim Risch (R-ID) stated that the report was a “partisan effort” by Democrats that “could endanger the lives of Americans overseas” and was not “serious or constructive.”[43]
Senator John McCain (R-AZ), himself a victim of torture while a prisoner of war in Vietnam,[56] said in a speech following Feinstein’s presentation on the Senate floor that he supported the release of the report, and that those responsible for the interrogation policy had “stained our national honor, did much harm and little practical good.”[32]
Kenneth Roth from Human Rights Watch called for prosecutions of senior Bush officials who authorized torture and oversaw its use. Roth states that failure to prosecute “is more than just a failure of justice”, it “means that torture effectively remains a policy option rather than a criminal offense.”[60]Steven W. Hawkins, the USA executive director of Amnesty International, called for justice saying, “Under the UN convention against torture, no exceptional circumstances whatsoever can be invoked to justify torture, and all those responsible for authorizing or carrying out torture or other ill-treatment must be fully investigated.”[61]
The United Nations’s special rapporteur on counter-terrorism and human rights, Ben Emmerson, called for the prosecution of those responsible. He said that the CIA had “commit[ed] systematic crimes and gross violations of international human rights law.”[32]Juan E. Méndez, the United Nations’ special rapporteur on torture, said in a statement that many governments have used the American use of torture to justify their own abuses, saying “If the U.S. tortures, why can’t we do it?” Mendez called the release of the report only the first step and called for “the investigation and prosecution of those who were responsible for ordering, planning or implementing the C.I.A. torture program.”[62] Speaking on December 10, the 30th anniversary of the adoption of the United Nations Convention Against Torture, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, commended the government’s release of the report saying, “Few countries will admit that their state apparatus has been practicing torture, and many continue shamelessly to deny it — even when it is well documented…” Zeid called for accountability saying, “In all countries, if someone commits murder, they are prosecuted and jailed. If they commit rape or armed robbery, they are prosecuted and jailed. If they order, enable or commit torture – recognized as a serious international crime – they cannot simply be granted impunity because of political expediency. When that happens, we undermine this exceptional Convention, and – as a number of U.S. political leaders clearly acknowledged yesterday – we undermine our own claims to be civilized societies rooted in the rule of law.”[63]
The President of Afghanistan, Ashraf Ghani, called the report “shocking”, saying the actions “violated all accepted norms of human rights in the world.”[64]
Former President of Poland, Aleksander Kwasniewski, said that he put pressure in 2003 on American officials to end interrogations at a secret CIA prison his country hosted, saying, “I told Bush that this cooperation must end and it did end.”[57]
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Marzieh Afkham said the “shocking report shows violence, extremism, and secrecy as institutionalized in the US security system”.[65]
The North Korean government called on the United Nations Security Council to investigate the “most brutal medieval forms” of torture practiced by the CIA at “black sites” around the world.[66]
Folha de S. Paulo dedicated the first page of its international section to the CIA story.[67]
Gazeta Wyborcza ran a banner headline entitled “The CIA Tortured and Lied About It.”[67]
An unsigned editorial in the Chinese-state-run[67]Global Times wrote that it revealed “wicked acts” and “gross violations of human rights by the CIA.”[67]
Official media[67] in North Korea quoted a professor at Kim Il-sung University as saying that the United States carries out “brutal tortures and other atrocities” against detainees.[67]
RT, a Russian state-funded TV network, had a leading story on a report that the U.S. paid Poland to host secret prisons.[67]
This article incorporates 
