The CIA will give the Senate intelligence oversight committee a closed briefing on how employees were held accountable and punished for their involvement with torture, the agency’s director told lawmakers in a hearing Thursday.
“The agency over the course of the last several years took actions to address shortcomings,” CIA Director John Brennan said during a rare appearance at a public Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on Thursday. He told the panel that “individual accountability” was a part of that.
Brennan’s promise comes just two days after the CIA released dozens of new documents to the American Civil Liberties Union — which sued the agency for access to the records after the release of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s notorious December 2014 “torture report” detailing the agency’s failed “enhanced interrogation” regime.
Brennan’s remarks were in response to Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., who asked him whether anyone, after two years, had been held accountable for torture, as promised.
President Barack Obama reportedly dismantled the CIA’s detention and interrogation program in which hundreds of detainees were subject to brutal conditions, primarily in Afghanistan. Few people, however, have been reprimanded in any formal way for building and fostering the system.
In addition to owing answers about accountability for torture, Brennan also promised to provide Wyden details about the CIA’s policies on the use of NSA foreign intelligence — specifically intercepted communications under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Though the database is supposed to be restricted to foreign internet communications, some American messages end up there as well.
Reps. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., and Thomas Massie, R-Ky., have offered an amendment to the House Defense Appropriations Bill currently being considered in Congress that would force a warrant requirement to search the massive database for American communications.
“The CIA routinely conducts warrantless searches for the emails of Americans” on the NSA database, Wyden pointed out. “My question is, if there was a rule that the CIA could only search if the Department of Justice has obtained a warrant — with the exception of an emergency situation, … would the CIA be able to comply?”
Brennan didn’t have an answer.
How do you know when Brennen is lying, just like the rest of this corrupt government? His lips are moving. Hey Brennen, CIA really investigated the outing of Valarie Plame didn’t you?
Not Robert Even nor any of the Bush administration were held accountable for this after everyone saying it was treason; but they decided it was just a mistake. Why don’t we put Brennen on the puppet train like the rest of the government to an insane asylum, clearly that is where they all belong. Totally out of touch with the world and themselves.
Military needs to remember that the true justice for corrupt treasonous military is to place them in front of a firing squad. This should be started from the top of government to the bottom. Sadly we know that the government is a coward when it comes to holding anyone in government accountable. They would rather lie, cheat, and steal from the people to continue their terrorism around the world.
Wonder how long before we are taken over by a foreign country? Our government sells us out to the highest bidder. We produce NOTHING in the USA except WMD’s. USA is the BIGGEST LOSER country in the world. Run by THUGS who threw the constitution out with the bathwater.
It sucks to be an American and even more of an embarrassment to live under the thumb of all these terrorist, that accuse others of being the terrorist. WHAT A CROCK OF BS!
Please forgive the Robert Even. It was Robert D. Novak. For some reason my correct, did not remove my mistake before putting the right name in and replacing the last name mistake. My apologies for the mistake. But notice I did take accountability, which should be refreshing after what we live through in this country.
Wasn’t Torture legalized under it’s US English translation: Advanced Interrogation Technique?
Surely, if this is a serious attempt to address a grave crime, to get to that point the people who decided it was legal and ordered it, Bush, Cheney et al, should be the first to be held accountable and punished. Along with the guy who decided that torture translates into US English as advanced interrogation technique and thus is not covered under the Geneva Convention against Torture because it is not worded as the Geneva Convention against Advanced Interrogation Techniques, or something to that effect.
On the road to nowhere.
Everything about the C.I.A. is “SECRET”…. the budget is secret….the number of employees is secret…where they work is secret…what they do is secret…..NOW – TELL ME YOU BELIEVE ANYTHING THEY SAY??? AND IF YOU DO WHY??
The American Reinvestment and Recovery Act and the brain initiative are the worst scams ever perpetrated on the American people. Former U. S. Surgeon General Regina Benjamin Warns: Biochips Hazardous to Your Health: Warning, biochips may cause behavioral changes and high suicide rates. State Attorney Generals are to revoke the licenses of doctors and dentists that implant chips in patients. Chip used illegally for GPS, tracking, organized crime, communication and torture. Virginia state police have been implanting citizens without their knowledge and consent for years and they are dying! Check out William and Mary’s site to see the torture enabled by the biochip and the Active Denial System. See Terrorism and Mental Health by Amin Gadit or A Note on Uberveillance by MG & Katina Michael or Safeguards in a World of Ambient Intelligence by Springer or Mind Control, Microchip Implants and Cybernetics. Check out the audio spotlight by Holosonics. The truth is the biochip works like a sim card. It received pulsed modulated laser beams and millimeter wave which it converts into electromagnetic waves that your brain interprets into digital images and sound. It then takes what your brain sees and hears and converts electromagnetic waves into digital and acoustic waves that a computer translates into audio and video. In other words, it allows law enforcement to see what you see, hear what you hear and communicate directly with your brain.
“Former Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) director and now Google Executive, Regina E. Dugan, has unveiled a super small, ingestible microchip that we can all be expected to swallow by 2017. “A means of authentication,” she calls it, also called an electronic tattoo, which takes NSA spying to whole new levels. She talks of the ‘mechanical mismatch problem between machines and humans,’ and specifically targets 10 – 20 year olds in her rant about the wonderful qualities of this new technology that can stretch in the human body and still be functional. Hailed as a ‘critical shift for research and medicine,’ these biochips would not only allow full access to insurance companies and government agencies to our pharmaceutical med-taking compliancy (or lack thereof), but also a host of other aspects of our lives which are truly none of their business, and certainly an extension of the removal of our freedoms and rights.” Google News
The ARRA authorizes payments to the states in an effort to encourage Medicaid Providers to adopt and use “certified EHR technology” aka biochips. ARRA will match Medicaid $5 for every $1 a state provides. Hospitals are paid $2 million to create “crisis stabilization wards” (Gitmo’s) where state police torture people – even unto death. They stopped my heart 90 times in 6 hours. Virginia Beach EMT’s were called to the scene. Mary E. Schloendorff, v. The Society of New York Hospital 105 N. E. 92, 93 (N. Y. 1914) Justice Cardozo states, “every human being of adult years and sound mind has a right to determine what shall be done with his own body; and a surgeon who performs an operation without his patient’s consent, commits an assault, for which he is liable in damages. (Pratt v Davis, 224 Ill. 300; Mohr v Williams, 95 Minn. 261.) This case precedent requires police to falsely arrest you or kidnap you and call you a mental health patient in order to force the implant on you. You can also be forced to have a biochip if you have an infectious disease – like Eboli or Aids.
Coalition of Justice vs the City of Hampton, VA settled a case out of court for $500,000 and removal of the biochip. Torture is punishable by $1,000 per day up to $2 million; Medical battery is worth $2.05 million. They told my family it was the brain initiative. I checked with the oversight board, and it is not! Mark Warner told me it was research with the Active Denial System by the College of William and Mary, the USAF, and state and local law enforcement. It is called IBEX and it is excruciating. I have had 3 surgeries at the site of the implant and need another. It causes cancer! I’ve been tortured for 8 years by Virginia law enforcement. Thousands of innocent Virginians are being tortured and murdered by criminal cops. Please help us get the word out to end these heinous atrocities. The pain is 24/7. The VA DCJS sent me a letter stating cops can get keys to anyone’s home and steal anything they please. The governor knows and takes his cut. Senator Kaine said the FBI is not involved so he can’t help. Check out Virginia’s Casual Disregard for the Constitution at forbes dot com. Check out Richard Cain’s case. They are torturing infants and children. The active denial system comes in rifle form and can murder without leaving a mark. Now the Richmond Medical examiner Dr. Whaley blows the whistle on the cover-up of murders by law enforcement and selling brains for $6,260 each to the NIH. I have had two heart attacks and am blessed to be alive. We need to make the nation aware to stop these thugs. Please help us.
Releasing the data is the first step in accountability. We don’t know the full scope of these programs. Most of what we know comes from whistle blowers not the government.
Congress could start the accountability process by releasing the remaining Abu Ghraib documents, torture report, black site prisons documents, funding etc.
Thank you for the article. Please look into the torture and extreme human rights abuses being covered up here in the US. Don’t know how much longer some of us can hang on.
Don’t forget the use of directed energy weapons: tracking/torturing/killing of people using electromagnetic waves, scalar waves, ultrasound waves and nanotechnology.
I guess guns are technically directed energy weapons. Kinetic energy. Tasers, electrical energy. Lasers, electromagnetic. But no, there are far easier methods to deal with people than killing them. Use positive reinforcement to train the press like it’s a puppy.
If only those closed briefings actually tell the truth and provide concrete details…
Lets not forget the use of scalar and ultrasound waves for the secret assassination and torture of whoever they deem to oppose the illegal activities of the government. They can see us through our walls, and combining this with directed energy weapons mean they can aim at someone’s heart while they sleep to cause a heart attack.
MKULTRA continues, RF weaponry on innocent civilians.
Keep your testing to consenting u.s. military Brennan.
President Obama, the presider in chief of the most transparent government, has handled the US like king Henry viii. What’s next, BLOODY MARY?
CIA Director Promises Answers on Accountability for Torture?
From the Director of the Department of Lies Deceipt & Propaganda?
So CIA Director John Brennan is now promising the people of America to tell us a more believable pack of lies???
Should be a reality show called Fantasies Among Us. Ought to be good for a few laffs.
I hear today that the state department is revolting against the will of the people and demanding more bombings in syria. Is there some sort of zika style zombie disease in the USG causing the gov to go bonkers for bodies?
almost forgot.. is he going to swear on a stack of bibles, do the stick a needle in his eye and hope to die, on his mother’s grave, may god strike with lightning, all without crossing his fingers behind his back?
This could be funnier than Johnny English.
The C.I.A. ordered by the courts to preserve the TAPES OF THE TORTURE – but destroyed them by accident??? Charges were filed – but there were no prosecutions because the statute of limitations expired……so they got a free ride. The SENATE hearing on torture covered over 8000 pages condensed into a book of less than 700 pages POLITELY PUT WHITEWASH – COVER-UP – – – LIES
“The CIA will give the Senate intelligence oversight committee a closed briefing on how employees were held accountable and punished for their involvement with torture”
For starters, John Kiriakou was sent to jail for 30 months for the CIA torture program. Oh wait, he was the guy that exposed it…
The theatre here is the idea that only the CIA has any information about torture, which can be quietly disclosed in closed-door meetings. Lots, and lots, and lots of people have lots, and lots, and lots of information about torture which they can disclose from the rooftops: the people who were subjected to torture, and survived it (not everyone did, of course). Word is already well out and will get louder, and louder, and louder. The idea that torture is “secret” and “quiet” and “hush-hush” and only fully known by a select inner circle is the one that is being fostered and protected and hot-housed in these hearings.
What you fail to point out, for whatever reason, is that no one cares in the U.S. The majority of Americans are pro-torture, don’t want to know about it, and will again endorse your country’s nasty habit in November.
Sure, there are lots and lots and lots of torture survivors, but you people either pile on or turn away whenever one of them says “Hey, Americans are torturing me. Here’s how they do it…”
I am one of those survivors (so far). Though my story is believed here in Brazil, by people not so deluded about how evil Americans can be during perpetual wartime, almost every single American — excepting three known outliers — I have attempted to inform was (a) working for the torturers in some capacity, or (b) didn’t give a shit and/or were unable to accept the abuses I described could possibly happen in the US. People in the latter category tend to squirm and slither away like the pro-torture cowards they are when facing one of their country’s torture subjects in the flesh.
Being veteran US torture subject and lifelong observer of the American Character leads me to assume you would now like to backtrack on your “disclose from the rooftops” bit and attempt to discredit me precisely because I say I am a US torture subject. Sorry KL, no American should get the benefit of the doubt until it stops and I (and so many others) get justice.
This is a farce. Torture was government policy so no one was or will be punished in any true sense of the term.
As confirmed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the United States has a hit-list naming over 2-million Arabs, Muslims, and American political dissidents for persecution and assassinations.
The list is shared with all police and government agencies with instructions to attack those named.
Fake democracy is this United States of America.
Don’t I know it.
You would cringe if you knew how they attack.
That’s guaranteed to be literally false. If every cop was handed a list of innocent people to kill by government officials, that would be big news. That many people can’t keep a secret that juicy. It’s not psychologically, socially, probabilistically possible.
You couldn’t get the truth out of this traitor by waterboarding him. But It’s worth a try?
To say he doesn’t have an answer is actually saying he won’t discuss it…pick an excuse and file it with the SECRETCY ACT – never to be seen or heard of again
Again, these “foreign” communications they collect from the cables at every border to the US are guaranteed to either be going to, or coming from, the United States, even if only to be redirected. It’s not merely accidental that American communications are collected.