CO-Sen: Mark Udall (D) Demands Report On Interrogations From CIA

Senator Mark Udall (D. CO) wants answers:

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/...

Members of the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday demanded that the CIA share a report on its post-9/11 interrogation practices, according to the New York Times.

The committee performed a three year investigation into how the CIA conducted interrogations in secret prisons, which found that the CIA's practices were brutal and produced little intelligence, according to the Times. The CIA publicly rebutted the Senate's report, but Sen. Mark Udall (D-CO) claims that the agency conducted its own investigation that is similarly critical of its interrogation practices.

"If this is true," Udall said during a Tuesday hearing, "this raises fundamental questions about why a review the C.I.A. conducted internally years ago — and never provided to the committee — is so different from the C.I.A.’s formal response to the committee study." - TPM, 12/18/13

Here's some more info:

http://www.nytimes.com/...

The Senate report, totaling more than 6,000 pages, was completed last December but has yet to be declassified. According to people who have read the study, it is unsparing in its criticism of the now-defunct interrogation program and presents a chronicle of C.I.A. officials’ repeatedly misleading the White House, Congress and the public about the value of brutal methods that, in the end, produced little valuable intelligence.

Senator Mark Udall, Democrat of Colorado, disclosed the existence of the internal C.I.A. report during an Intelligence Committee hearing on Tuesday. He said he believed it was begun several years ago and “is consistent with the Intelligence’s Committee’s report” although it “conflicts with the official C.I.A. response to the committee’s report.”

“If this is true,” Mr. Udall said during a hearing on the nomination of Caroline D. Krass to be the C.I.A.’s top lawyer, “this raises fundamental questions about why a review the C.I.A. conducted internally years ago — and never provided to the committee — is so different from the C.I.A.’s formal response to the committee study.”

The agency responded to the committee report with a vigorous 122-page rebuttal that challenged both the Senate report’s specific facts and its overarching conclusions. John O. Brennan, one of Mr. Obama’s closest advisers before taking over the C.I.A. this year — and who denounced the interrogation program during his confirmation hearing — delivered the agency’s response to the Intelligence Committee himself.

The Senate report, which took years to complete and cost more than $40 million to produce, began as an attempt to document what was perhaps the most divisive of the Bush administration’s responses to the Sept. 11 attacks. But it has since become enmeshed in the complex politics of the Obama administration.

President Obama ended the detention program as one of his first acts in the Oval Office, and has repeatedly denounced the C.I.A.’s interrogation methods under the program. During a speech in May, he said that the United States had “compromised our basic values by using torture to interrogate our enemies, and detaining individuals in a way that ran counter to the rule of law.” - New York Times, 12/17/13

Here's more on the interaction between Udall and Krass:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...

Udall asked Krass to ensure that the CIA provide the committee a copy of the internal review initiated under former CIA Director Leon Panetta of the agency's detention and interrogation program.

"It appears that this review ... is consistent with the Intelligence Committee's report, but, amazingly, it conflicts with the official CIA response to the committee's report," Udall said.

"If this is true, it raises fundamental questions about why a review the CIA conducted internally years ago and never provided to the committee is so different from the CIA's formal written response to the committee's study," he added.

The report's existence was not public knowledge until Udall questioned Krass during the hearing.

Committee Democrats have concluded that the CIA obtained little or no critical intelligence from its use of secret prisons and harsh interrogation. Several panel members offered tough criticism and closely questioned Krass over her view of such techniques.

"It (the use of such techniques) was a tragic mistake of great significance in the history of this country," West Virginia Senator Jay Rockefeller said.

Krass said she considered waterboarding to be torture.

Udall said he also wanted the White House to make a public statement committing to "the fullest possible declassification" of the committee's study, and the CIA's response, before he could support Krass' nomination.

Asked if Udall would use a hold, his spokesman Mike Saccone said the senator was committed to working with the committee and the CIA on the nomination and to get the information he requested.

But Saccone added: "He will have a full range of procedural tools to pick from to accomplish this objective." - Huffington Post, 12/17/13

Udall and his colleagues are being a real thorn in the Obama Administration's side about this:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/...

Some Democrats on the committee, while generally supportive of Krass, raised the specter of opposing her nomination if she did not commit to cooperating with the panel’s probe.  Sen. Mark Udall of Colorado asked for Krass’s assurances that she would work to turn over certain key CIA documents the committee has been unable to obtain. Among them, Udall said, was an internal report on the agency’s interrogations program that was commissioned by former CIA Director Leon Panetta. According to Udall, the Panetta report “is consistent with the Intelligence Committee’s report,” though, he said, “amazingly” it conflicts with the CIA’s own response to the intel panel’s report. Krass pledged to cooperate with the committee on the production of documents. Asked for comment on the Panetta report, Dean Boyd, director of the CIA Office of Public Affairs said, “We’re aware of the committee’s request and will respond appropriately.”

On several occasions, Democrats lashed out at the CIA for trying to undermine their report with false information. They were particularly angry about statements from an agency spokesman highlighting the report’s “significant errors.” According to Senator Martin Heinrich, a Democrat from New Mexico, the CIA identified a single error that has since been corrected. “I am outraged that the CIA continues to make misleading statements about the committee’s study,” Heinrich said. “I am convinced now more than ever that we need to declassify the full report so that those with a political agenda can no longer manipulate public opinion by making false representations about what may be or what is not in that study.” To support his claim, Heinrich cited a Daily Beast story posted earlier today that quoted CIA spokesman Dean Boyd on what he called the report’s “significant errors.” Heinrich describe the article as “highly misleading.”

Although the hearing was dominated by questions about fallout from Bush-era interrogation policies, senators also asked an array of questions about legal theories underpinning other controversial counterterrorism polices, including targeted killings, detention, and the full scope of the congressional statute authorizing the war on terror. In one clear rebuff of the committee, Krass indicated she was not in favor of providing Congress with Justice Department OLC opinions laying out the administration’s legal rationales for controversial counterterrorism policies like targeted killings and interrogations. Krass said it was important to protect the deliberative process and the attorney-client privilege, although she said she was in favor of sharing the legal framework for those activities if not the entire opinions. Republicans, for the most part, treated Krass gently, deferring to their Democratic colleagues to ask the tough questions. - The Daily Beast, 12/18/13

And the CIA has some serious questions to answer:

http://security.blogs.cnn.com/...

CIA spokesman Dean Boyd said: "We're aware of the Committee's request and will respond appropriately."

Krass, a former lawyer in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel and in the Obama White House, resisted making promises to provide more information to the Senate committee to complete its work on the CIA program.

In response to questions from Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-California, who heads the Senate Intelligence panel, Krass said she would make sure lawmakers understood the executive branch's decisions, but wouldn't support releasing all Office of Legal Counsel memos as requested by congress.

"The OLC opinions represent pre-decisional confidential legal advice that's been provided, and protecting the confidentiality of that legal advice preserves space for there to be a full and frank discussion amongst clients and the policy makers and their lawyers within the executive branch and I believe furthers, really furthers the rule of law because it allows for the effective functioning of the executive branch," Krass said. - CNN, 12/17/13

We shall see.  By the way, Udall was happy to hear this:

http://kdvr.com/...

Colorado Sen. Mark Udall applauded a federal judge’s ruling Monday that the National Security Agency program which collects information on nearly all telephone calls made to, from or within the United States is likely to be unconstitutional.

“The ruling underscores what I have argued for years,” Udall said. “The bulk collection of Americans’ phone records conflicts with Americans’ privacy rights under the U.S. Constitution and has failed to make us safer.

“We can protect our national security without trampling our constitutional liberties. This court ruling only underscores the urgent need for Congress to act and pass my bipartisan bill to ensure the NSA focuses on terrorists and spies — and not innocent Americans.”

U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon found that the program appears to run afoul of the Fourth Amendment prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures. He also said the Justice Department had failed to demonstrate that collecting the so-called metadata had helped to head off terrorist attacks.

“Plaintiffs have a very significant expectation of privacy in an aggregated collection of their telephone metadata covering the last five years, and the NSA’s Bulk Telephony Metadata Program significantly intrudes on that expectation,” wrote Leon.

“I have significant doubts about the efficacy of the metadata collection program as a means of conducting time-sensitive investigations in cases involving imminent threats of terrorism.”I cannot imagine a more ‘indiscriminate’ and ‘arbitrary invasion’ than this systematic and high-tech collection and retention of personal data on virtually every single citizen for purposes of querying it and analyzing it without judicial approval,” Leon added. - KDVR, 12/16/13

Udall and Senator Ron Wyden (D. OR) have been the two Senators taking the lead on this issue.  Please do consider donating or getting involved with Udall's campaign so he can continue to fight for our civil liberties in the U.S. Senate:
http://www.markudall.com/