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Hissyspit's Journal7 Most Shocking Things in the CIA Torture Report (It's Even Worse Than We Thought)
http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/7-things-we-learned-new-report-cia-tortureNEWS & POLITICS
AlterNet / By Cliff Weathers comments_image 34 COMMENTS
7 Most Shocking Things in the CIA Torture Report
It's even worse than we thought.
December 9, 2014 |
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However, this is not the final report, but a redacted 480-page executive summary. The complete report totals more than 6,000 pages. The Senate Republicans also released a counter-assessment. While some critics say that there is the possibility of retaliation from terrorist groups, others are saying that the fallout over the report will be mostly political.
"Did we torture people? Yes. Did it work? No.," Sen. King, the Maine independent told CNN.
"The greatness of this country is that we can examine mistakes and remedy them and that is the hallmark of a great and just society" Sen. Diane Feinstein, chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said to CNN moments before the report's release. Here are the most shocking findings from the report:
1. Some detainees died as a result of interrogation.
In November 2002, an otherwise healthy detainee who had been held partially nude and chained to a concrete floor died from suspected hypothermia at the facility. The CIA's leadership acknowledged little knowledge of advanced interrogation techniques at the detention site where he was held.
2. The techniques were far more brutal than previously known.
Multiple CIA detainees subjected to the techniques suffered from hallucinations, paranoia, insomnia and tried to mutilate themselves, the report says. On one occasion, a high-value al Qaeda suspect named Abu Zubaydah became completely unresponsive after a period of intense waterboarding. He had "bubbles rising through his open full mouth," the report says.
Additionally, detainees were subjected to forced “rectal feeding” or “rectal hydration" even if they did not have medical need for them.
4. The CIA's use of its enhanced interrogation techniques was not an effective means of acquiring intelligence or gaining cooperation from detainees.
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For example, seven of the 39 CIA detainees known to have been subjected to the CIA's enhanced interrogation techniques produced no intelligence while in CIA custody. Other detainees provided significant, accurate intelligence prior to, or without having been, subjected to these torture.
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7. Those who were not suspects were interrogated.
Of the 119 known detainees, at least 26 were wrongfully held and did not meet the detention standard. These included an "intellectually challenged" man whose CIA detention was used solely as leverage to get a family member to provide information, two individuals who were intelligence sources for foreign liaison services and were former CIA sources, and two individuals whom the CIA assessed to be connected to al-Qa'ida based solely on information fabricated by a CIA detainee subjected to the CIA's enhanced interrogation techniques. These detainees, however, often remained in custody for months after the CIA determined that they did not meet the MON standard. CIA records provide insufficient information to justify the detention of many other detainees.
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http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/12/cia-torture-report-abuses-rectal-feeding
"Rectal Feeding," Threats to Children, and More: 16 Awful Abuses From the CIA Torture Report
1. The CIA used previously unreported tactics, including "rectal feeding" of detainees (p. 100, footnote 584):
2. CIA officers threatened the children of detainees (p. 4):
3. Over 20 percent of CIA detainees were "wrongfully held." One was an "intellectually challenged" man who was held so the CIA could get leverage over his family (p. 12):
4. One detainee, Abu Hudhaifa, was subjected to "ice water baths" and "66 hours of standing sleep deprivation" before being released because the CIA realized it probably had the wrong man (p. 16, footnote 32):
5. The CIA, contra what it told Congress, began torturing detainees before even determining whether they would cooperate (p. 104):
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10. The CIA torturers told CIA leadership that torture wasn't producing good information from KSM. But CIA leaders didn't relay that information to Congress (p. 212):
11. A detainee was tortured for not addressing an interrogator as "sir"—and for complaining about a stomach ache (p. 106):
REST OF THE HORRORS AT LINK
CIA Deceived White House, Public Over '(Far More) Brutal' Interrogations: Report
Source: Reuters
CIA deceived White House, public over 'brutal' interrogations: report
WASHINGTON | Tue Dec 9, 2014 3:10pm EST
By Mark Hosenball
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The CIA routinely misled the White House and Congress over its harsh interrogation program for terrorism suspects and its methods, which included waterboarding, were more brutal than the agency acknowledged, a Senate report said on Tuesday.
The program, devised by two agency contractors to squeeze information from suspects after the Sept. 11 2001 attacks, was ineffective and never led to the disruption of a single plot, the report by the Senate Intelligence Committee said.
The program ran from 2002 to 2006 and involved questioning al Qaeda and other captives in secret detention facilities in various countries, including Afghanistan, Poland, Romania and Thailand.
The report, which followed a five-year investigation, found the techniques used were "far more brutal" than the CIA told the public or policymakers. Its release prompted a boost of security at U.S. facilities abroad.
"This document examines the CIA's secret overseas detention of at least 119 individuals and the use of coercive interrogation techniques - in some cases amounting to torture," committee chair Dianne Feinstein said.
Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN0JM24I20141209
http://graphics.thomsonreuters.com/14/CIA-detainees/index.html
What I've Learned from Two Years Collecting Data on Police Killings
http://gawker.com/what-ive-learned-from-two-years-collecting-data-on-poli-1625472836
What I've Learned from Two Years Collecting Data on Police Killings
382,354324
D. Brian Burghart
Filed to: POLICE BRUTALITY
COPS
DEATHS
PROJECTS
8/22/14 1:25pm
A few days ago, Deadspin's Kyle Wagner began to compile a list of all police-involved shootings in the U.S. He's not the only one to undertake such a project: D. Brian Burghart, editor of the Reno News & Review, has been attempting a crowdsourced national database of deadly police violence. We asked Brian to write about what he's learned from his project.
It began simply enough. Commuting home from my work at Reno's alt-weekly newspaper, the News & Review, on May 18, 2012, I drove past the aftermath of a police shooting—in this case, that of a man named Jace Herndon. It was a chaotic scene, and I couldn't help but wonder how often it happened.
I went home and grabbed my laptop and a glass of wine and tried to find out. I found nothing—a failure I simply chalked up to incompetent local media.
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I started to search in earnest. Nowhere could I find out how many people died during interactions with police in the United States. Try as I might, I just couldn't wrap my head around that idea. How was it that, in the 21st century, this data wasn't being tracked, compiled, and made available to the public? How could journalists know if police were killing too many people in their town if they didn't have a way to compare to other cities? Hell, how could citizens or police? How could cops possibly know "best practices" for dealing with any fluid situation? They couldn't.
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Database & Last Name Check
Read more fatalencounters.org
The biggest thing I've taken away from this project is something I'll never be able to prove, but I'm convinced to my core: The lack of such a database is intentional. No government—not the federal government, and not the thousands of municipalities that give their police forces license to use deadly force—wants you to know how many people it kills and why.
It's the only conclusion that can be drawn from the evidence. What evidence? In attempting to collect this information, I was lied to and delayed by the FBI, even when I was only trying to find out the addresses of police departments to make public records requests. The government collects millions of bits of data annually about law enforcement in its Uniform Crime Report, but it doesn't collect information about the most consequential act a law enforcer can do.
I've been lied to and delayed by state, county and local law enforcement agencies—almost every time. They've blatantly broken public records laws, and then thumbed their authoritarian noses at the temerity of a citizen asking for information that might embarrass the agency. And these are the people in charge of enforcing the law.
The second biggest thing I learned is that bad journalism colludes with police to hide this information. The primary reason for this is that police will cut off information to reporters who tell tales. And a reporter can't work if he or she can't talk to sources. It happened to me on almost every level as I advanced this year-long Fatal Encounters series through the News & Review. First they talk; then they stop, then they roadblock.
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Breaking: Durham NC Protesters Shut Down Durham Freeway
Source: WRAL-TV
NEWS
PROTESTERS BLOCK SOME DOWNTOWN DURHAM STREETS
Updated 1 min ago
DURHAM (WTVD) -- Protesters upset by recent grand jury decisions in New York and Ferguson are blocking some streets and highways in Durham.
First, protesters blocked Mangum Street in downtown Durham.
The group then marched toward and onto the Durham Freeway, which prompted police to close the highway in both directions for about an hour.
Protesters are also blocking intersections of Duke and Chapel Hill Streets, and, at last report, were in front of the Durham Performing Arts Center.
Read more: http://abc11.com/news/protesters-block-some-downtown-durham-streets/424487/
Ukrainian PM Reports Accident at Nuclear Power Plant
Source: Reuters
Ukrainian PM reports accident at nuclear power plant
Wed Dec 3, 2014 5:59am EST
KIEV (Reuters) - Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk said on Wednesday an accident had occurred at the Zaporizhye nuclear power plant (NPP) in south-east Ukraine and called on the energy minister to hold a news conference.
"I know that an accident has occurred at the Zaporizhye NPP," Yatseniuk said, asking new energy minister Volodymyr Demchyshyn to make clear when the problem would be resolved and what steps would be taken to restore normal power supply across Ukraine.
News agency Interfax Ukraine said the problem had occurred at bloc No 3 - a 1,000-megawatt reactor - and the resulting lack of output had worsened the power crisis in the country. Interfax added that the bloc was expected to come back on stream on Dec. 5.
Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKCN0JH0ZV20141203
TOM TOMORROW: Black and White
DAILY KOS LINK: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/12/01/1348341/-Cartoon-Black-and-white
IT WAS A TURKEY PARDONING!!!
For fu*k's sake... They weren't FORMAL enough??! For a turkey pardoning?
What in hell is wrong with right-wingers' brains?
I don't know how much more stupidity I can take before my brain overloads and melts into a pool of cholesterol mush.
Novelist PD James Dies Aged 94 ('Children of Men')
Source: Associated Press
Novelist PD James dies aged 94
BY JILL LAWLESS
NOV. 27, 2014 8:40 AM EST
20
LONDON (AP) — Publisher Faber and Faber says mystery writer P.D. James, who brought realistic modern characters to the classical British detective story, has died. She was 94.
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But James' books were strong on character, avoided stereotype and touched on distinctly modern problems including drugs, child abuse and nuclear contamination.
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In 1980, with the publication of her eighth book, "Innocent Blood," her small but loyal following exploded into mass, international popularity.
"Monday, I was ticking along as usual, and by Friday I was a millionaire," she once said.
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Her work was not confined to the mystery genre. Her 1992 science fiction novel "The Children of Men," about a dystopian future in which humanity has become infertile, was turned into a critically praised 2006 movie by Alfonso Cuaron. In 2013 she published "Death Comes to Pemberley," introducing a murder mystery into the lives of Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice."
Read more: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/b50e94bb025345868543cb787cf75148/novelist-pd-james-dies-aged-94
Ferguson Prosecutor's Idiot Speech Blames Everyone But Darren Wilson
http://gawker.com/ferguson-prosecutors-idiot-speech-blames-everyone-but-d-1662970833Ferguson Prosecutor's Idiot Speech Blames Everyone But Darren Wilson
35,71023
Gabrielle Bluestone
Ferguson prosecutor Robert McCulloch delivered a long-winded, smirking speech blaming social media, the media, journalists, neighborhood residents, and everyone else who isn't Darren Wilson, for Darren Wilson shooting and killing 18-year-old Michael Brown.
It took McCulloch 10 minutes of hectoring before he revealed the panel had found no probable cause to indict Wilson, and the rest of the 45-minute speech, in which McCulloch seemed to be presenting evidence in Wilson's favor, felt a lot more like defense attorney's argument than a prosecutors. The very length of McCulloch's rambling statement, really, and the amount of evidence he felt compelled to argue against, was an argument that the case should have gone to trial.
But before he got to any of that, McCulloch explained all the ways the case could have been quietly shelved, had those meddling witnesses stayed off Twitter.
McCulloch offered Brown's gunshot wounds as an example, claiming that witnesses changed their stories after private autopsy results went public. McCulloch also appeared to suggest that the grand jurors watched TV to determine witness credibility.
"There is no question of course that Darren Wilson caused the death of Michael Brown by shooting him," McCulloch said, in an extraordinary linguistic backbend. "But the inquiry doesn't end there."
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Reminder: Cops Who Shot Black Man Carrying Toy Gun in Ohio Walmart Will Not Be Indicted
http://aattp.org/cops-who-shot-black-man-carrying-toy-gun-in-ohio-walmart-will-not-be-indicted-video/Cops Who Shot Black Man Carrying Toy Gun in Ohio Walmart Will Not Be Indicted (Video)
Posted by: John Prager in Crime, Police Brutality, Racism in America September 24, 2014
Not only was John Crawford III not holding the pellet gun when he was gunned down “on sight” by police officers in an Ohio Walmart, but he certainly was not “pointing” it at people or in any way acting in a threatening manner. Now that a grand jury has irresponsibly chosen not to indict Sergeant David Darkow and Officer Sean Williams on criminal charges, the surveillance video of the shooting has been released — and police certainly do not look heroic in this incident.
“This case is a tragedy for the family and for the police officers who were justified to take a life,” said Special Prosecutor John Piepmeier. He said that officers were trained to “neutralize the threat” immediately — which, in this case, means murdering an innocent man whose only “crime” was being engaged in a phone conversation.
After the grand jury decided that police shooting an African-American man carrying a pellet gun he picked up in the store and planned to buy based on a phone call from a habitual liar who changed his story after realizing that video cameras exist was justified, the Attorney General released the following statement indicating that the Department of Justice would take over from here:
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The City of Beavercreek issued a statement saying that, despite the video clearly showing that Crawford made no indication he realized officers were there, officers followed “accepted law enforcement protocol” in gunning down a man who had not committed a crime.
“The events of August 5th were tragic and we wish the outcome of that evening had been different. However, based on the information the responding officers had and Mr. Crawford’s failure to comply with the responding officers orders, the officers did what they were trained to do to protect the public. The officers followed accepted law enforcement training protocol in their response to the report of an active threat in the Wal-Mart store. The grand jury review of the evidence and subsequent no bill decision indicates the officers’ actions were not of a criminal nature and justified under Ohio law.
Although the state review process has been concluded, in keeping with the Beavercreek Police Department’s Organizational Values and our desire to uphold the public trust, City Manager, Michael A. Cornell and Police Chief Dennis Evers are requesting the Federal Bureau of Investigation conduct a separate review of the Beavercreek Police Department’s actions in this case to determine if there were any civil rights violations. The Beavercreek Police Department will cooperate fully with the FBI during this process. Until the conclusion of the review of the FBI’s recommendations by the Department of Justice, Officer Sean Williams will be assigned administrative desk duty within the police department. The City will have no further comment pending the Department of Justice review.”
Crawford attorney Michael Wright told 2 NEWS that,
“It is absolutely incomprehensible that Beavercreek police officer Sean Williams was not indicted for the unlawful killing of John H. Crawford, lll. It makes absolutely no sense that an unarmed 22-year-old man would be killed doing what any American citizen does every day: shopping at a Walmart store. The Crawford family is extremely disappointed, disgusted and confused. They are heartbroken that justice was not done in the tragic death of their only son.”
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