interrogation techniques

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Obama Releases Bush Memos Detailing Torture

Justice docs released detail OK'd techniques

(Newser) - A Bush-era memo on interrogation techniques acknowledged that waterboarding represented a “threat of imminent death,” but that the simulated-drowning procedure was not torture because it caused no lasting psychological harm, Reuters reports. The Justice Department memo and three others on interrogations were released to the public today—and...

Obama Signs Order to Close Gitmo

(Newser) - President Obama today signed orders to close the Guantanamo Bay detention center within a year, review the military terror trials, and ban the harshest interrogation techniques, the AP reports. “There we go,” the president said with satisfaction after signing the orders, which promise to fundamentally reshape the country's...

Obama Will Ban Torture— But Considers a Loophole

(Newser) - Barack Obama is set to prohibit waterboarding and other enhanced interrogation techniques by mandating the CIA follow the US Army Field Manual when questioning suspects, the AP reports. But as the president-elect debates whether to make the changes through legislation or presidential fiat, the incoming administration is also considering a...

Investigate Bush: Conyers
 Investigate Bush: Conyers 
OPINION
Jan 16, 2009 11:29 AM CST

Investigate Bush: Conyers

Congress must review his abuses to prevent a repeat

(Newser) - As the country moves forward, we can’t afford to repeat the mistakes of the past: it’s time to review the abuses of the Bush administration, writes Michigan congressman John Conyers, Jr. in the Washington Post. Congress must keep pushing for “stonewalled” Bush documents; it should create an...

Senate Report Pins Torture on Rumsfeld

Bipartisan panel, including McCain, concludes detainee abuse not just because of 'a few bad apples'

(Newser) - Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other top White House officials were responsible for detainee abuse at US military prisons, a bipartisan Senate report finds. After 2 years of hearing testimony and reviewing documents, the study—released by Sens. John McCain and Carl Levin—traces controversial interrogation practices like sleep...

Bands Blast Blaring 'Music Torture' at Gitmo

Campaign against use of rock to break war prisoners

(Newser) - Rock musicians are banding together to protest use of their music—played loudly and incessantly—to torture war prisoners. US interrogators have bragged about breaking detainees by endlessly playing the same pulsating music for months. "Plenty lost their minds"—not just to Eminem, but Sesame Street songs and...

India to Use Truth Serum on Terrorist

Drug used during Cold War, now banned in most democracies

(Newser) - Indian police plan to inject a controversial truth serum into the lone surviving Mumbai terrorist to try to prove his identity, reports the London Times. The narcotics-powered analysis could yield proof that the so-called "baby-faced gunman" is indeed from Pakistan, which India suspects but Pakistan doubts. Western agencies stopped...

Obama's In for an Awkward CIA Transition
Obama's In for an Awkward
CIA Transition
ANALYSIS
Dec 3, 2008 12:08 PM CST

Obama's In for an Awkward CIA Transition

His tough campaign rhetoric sets tone as left looks for change

(Newser) - On the campaign trail, Barack Obama frequently railed against the CIA’s secret jails and harsh interrogation techniques. Now, he must lead the agency, and the transition’s already proving rocky, the New York Times reports. Liberal outcry derailed his rumored pick for director, John Brennan. Brennan was chief of...

Make Your Case on Anti-Terror, Mr. Bush

Bill Kristol thinks America will listen

(Newser) - Republicans have fallen out of favor, and there’s probably nothing George W. Bush can say in his final days to change that. “But he could do his party—and the nation—a service by reminding Americans of our successes fighting the war on terror,” writes William Kristol....

Obama Likely to Keep Bush Intel Policies

Positions likely to be filled with pragmatists

(Newser) - Barack Obama isn’t likely to deliver the radical intelligence policy overhaul many civil liberty groups are craving, advisers tell the Wall Street Journal. Those advisers include former Republican supporters and centrist Clinton officials. “He’s going to take a very centrist approach,” said an ex-Bush and Clinton...

Secret White House Memos OK'd Waterboarding

Fearing backlash, CIA sought and received support

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

Interrogation Debate Divides Psychologists

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

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

Bin Laden Driver's Soft Spot: McDonald's Fries

FBI agents discovered he liked them during interrogations

(Newser) - Osama bin Laden’s driver warmed up to interrogators after he was given McDonald’s french fries, Reuters reports. He "even appreciated that McDonald's fries are not good cold," an FBI agent testified yesterday at Salim Hamdan’s war crimes trial. In another instance, he perked up when...

Hitchens Agrees: Waterboarding Is Torture

Controversial writer puts his money where his mouth is, takes plunge for Vanity Fair

(Newser) - "You may have read by now the official lie about this treatment, which is that it simulates the feeling of drowning," Christopher Hitchens writes of waterboarding in Vanity Fair. "You feel that you are drowning because you are drowning," concludes the author, who experienced the controversial...

Gitmo 'Torture' Modeled on Chinese Grilling of US POWs

Communist methods became US training manual

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

'Good Cop' Enticed 9/11 Mastermind to Talk

But detainee had already faced waterboarding

(Newser) - A CIA interrogator’s rapport with a mastermind of the 9/11 attacks helped provide vast amounts of information on terrorism while raising tough questions about interrogation methods, the New York Times reports. Agent Deuce Martinez cajoled Khalid Sheikh Mohammed into discussing his thoughts in great detail—but it’s unclear...

CIA Gave Pentagon Torture Tips
CIA Gave Pentagon Torture Tips
Jun 18, 2008 8:06 AM CDT

CIA Gave Pentagon Torture Tips

Methods were 'reverse-engineered' from manuals

(Newser) - The CIA gave the Pentagon advice about the legality of harsh interrogation techniques to be used on detainees at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere, the Washington Post reports. Documents shown to a Senate committee yesterday reveal that the agency had a bigger role than first thought. Torture is "subject to...

Ex-Pentagon Lawyers Face Grilling in Torture Probe

Defense Department lawyers played bigger role in Gitmo than first thought

(Newser) - Pentagon lawyers had more input than was initially thought into the harsh interrogation techniques used on Guantanamo Bay prisoners, sources close to a Senate investigation have told the New York Times. Documents from 2002 reveal that officials in the Department of Defense, then run by Donald Rumsfeld, researched techniques like...

Judge Orders CIA to Release 'Torture' Memo

Key document said to outline waterboarding techniques

(Newser) - A federal judge has ordered the CIA to release a 2002 memo believed to outline interrogation methods that may amount to torture. The ACLU, which brought the suit sparking the order, claims that the memo details harsh interrogation techniques, including waterboarding, and calls it "one of the most important...

Showdown Looms Over Cheney Staffer

VP battling House subpoena for key aide on interrogation policy

(Newser) - Whether a key Dick Cheney aide can be forced to testify is at the heart of a pending blow-up between Congress and the White House over a probe into interrogation techniques, Reuters reports. The House Judiciary Committee plans to subpoena Cheney's chief of staff, David Addington—but the vice president...

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