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Curated research library of TV news clips regarding the NSA, its oversight and privacy issues, 2009-2014

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Primary curation & research: Robin Chin, Internet Archive TV News Researcher; using Internet Archive TV News service.

Speakers

Dianne Feinstein
U.S. Senator (D-CA), Chairman of Senate Select Committee on Intelligence
CSPAN2 12/09/2014
Feinstein: The CIA relied on these two contractors to evaluate the interrogation program they had devised and in which they had obvious financial interests; again, a clear conflict of interest and an avoidance of responsibility by the CIA. In 2005 the two contractors formed a company specifically for the purpose of expanding their work with the CIA . From '05 to '08, CIA outsourced almost all aspects of its detention and interrogation program to this country as part of a contract valued at more than $180 million. Ultimately, not all contract options were exercised. However, the CIA has paid these two contractors and their company more than $80 million.
Dianne Feinstein
U.S. Senator (D-CA), Chairman of Senate Select Committee on Intelligence
CSPAN2 12/09/2014
Feinstein: Of the 119 individuals found to have been detained by the CIA during the life of the program, the committee found that at least are 26 were wrongfully held. These are cases where the CIA itself determined that it had not met the standard for detention set out in the 2001 memorandum of notification which governs a covert action. Detainees often remained in custody for months after the CIA determined they should have been released. CIA records provide insufficient information to justify the detention of many other detainees. Due to poor recordkeeping, a full accounting of how many specific detainees were held and how they were specifically treated while in custody may never be known.
George W. Bush
Former President of the Unitied States
CNNW 12/10/2014
Cooper: As you may remember time and again over the years, former President Bush and Cheney, heads of the CIA, denied the CIA was torturing people and enhanced interrogation techniques effective but the report said it's not true. Take a look. Bush: I told our people, get information without torture and was assured by our Justice Department that we were not torturing. Tenant: We don't torture people. Bush: Whatever we have done is legal. Hayden: The use of these techniques against these terrorists made us safer. Tennant: We don't torture people. Bush: We've acted on information they've given us to prevent attacks. Pelley: Khalid Sheikh Muhammed, Tennant: We don't torture. Pelley: waterboarding Tennant: We do not, I don’t talk about techniques and we do not torture people. Jonathan Karl: Do you think any of those tactics that were used against Khalid Sheikh Muhammed and others went too far? Cheney: I don't. Tennant: Let me say that again, we don't torture people.
Dianne Feinstein
U.S. Senator (D-CA), Chairman of Senate Select Committee on Intelligence
CSPAN2 12/10/2014
Feinstein: Over the past five years, a small team of committee investigators pored over the more than 6.3 million pages of CIA records the leader spoke about to complete this report or what we call the study. It shows that the CIA's actions a decade ago are a stain on our value and on our history. The release of this 500-page summary cannot remove that stain, but it can and does say to our people and the world that America is big enough to admit when it's wrong and confident enough to learn from its mistakes. Releasing this report is an important step to restore our values and show the world that we are, in fact, a just and lawful society.
Mark Udall
Senator (D-Colorado) Member of Select Committee on Intelligence
CSPAN2 12/10/2014
Udall: The refusal to provide the full Panetta review and the refusal to acknowledge facts detailed in both the committee study and the patent review lead to one disturbing finding. Director Brennan and the C.I.A. today are continuing to willfully provide inaccurate information and misrepresent the efficacy of torture. In other words, the C.I.A. is lying. This is not a problem of the past, Madam President, but a problem that needs to be dealt with today.
Mark Udall
Senator (D-Colorado) Member of Select Committee on Intelligence
CSPAN2 12/10/2014
Udall: Some of these people are still employed by the C.I.A. and the U.S. government. They are right now, people serving in high-level positions at the agency who approved, directed or committed acts related to the C.I.A.'s detention and interrogation program. It's bad enough not to prosecute these officials, but to reward or promote them and risk the integrity of the U.S. government to protect them is incomprehensible. The President needs to purge his administration of high-level officials who were instrumental to the development and running of this program. He needs to force a cultural change at the CIA. Presidents also should support legislation limiting interrogation to non-coercive techniques, to insure his own executive order is codified and prevent a future administration from developing its own torture program.
Mark Udall
Senator (D-Colorado) Member of Select Committee on Intelligence
CSPAN2 12/10/2014
Udall: The President must ensure the Panetta Review is declassified and publicly released. the full 6,800-page study on the C.I.A.'s detention and interrogation program should be declassified and released. There also needs to be accountability for the C.I.A.'s spying on its oversight committee and the C.I.A.'s inspector general's report needs to be declassified and released to the public. A key lesson I've learned from my experience with the study is the importance of the role of Congress in overseeing the intelligence community. It is always easier to accept what we are told at face value than it is to ask tough questions. If we rely on others to tell us what's behind their own curtain instead of taking a look for ourselves, we can't know for certain what's there.
Mark Udall
Senator (D-Colorado) Member of Select Committee on Intelligence
CSPAN2 12/10/2014
Udall: This isn't at all to say that what the committee found in its study is a culture and behavior we should ascribe to all employees of the C.I.A. or of the intelligence community. The intelligence community is made up of thousands of hardworking, patriotic Americans. These women and men are consummate professionals who risk their lives every day to keep us safe and to provide their best assessments regardless of political or policy considerations. But it’s incumbent on government leaders, it's incumbent on us, to live up to the dedication of these employees and to make them proud of the institutions they work for. It gives me no pleasure to say this, but as I've said before, for Director Brennan, that means resigning.
Dick Cheney
Former Vice President of the United States
FOXNEWSW 12/10/2014
Baer: You have a lot of critics, some of them say that you should be behind bars. Cheney: uh-huh. Baer: Colonel Wilkerson who worked for Secretary Powell, said we all have to wear the taint Richard Bruce Cheney brought down on us with his full throated endorsement of inhuman and evil methods of causing pain, humiliation and harm to other human beings. It's wrong that there’s no consequences for those who perpetrated it and it’s wrong that Cheney isn't languishing in a privatized prison somewhere. Cheney: I guess you’d have to call him not a fan. Baer: Not a fan. Cheney: Not a fan. Baer: Is there anything to the Geneva Convention, to the world rule of law on this issue? Cheney: Sure there is. But remember the terrorists were not covered by the Geneva Convention. They were unlawful combatants. And under those circumstances they were not entitled to the normal kinds of courtesies and treatment you would accord to those.
James Mitchell
CIA Contractor and Architect of the CIA's Enhanced Interrogation Techniques
FOXNEWSW 12/10/2014
Henry: A psychologist known as the architect of the CIA's enhanced interrogations told Vice News, using those tactics on 39 detainees pales to using drones to kill thousands Mitchell: To me it seems completely insensible that slapping KSM is bad but send in a hell fire missile into a family’s picnic and killing all the children, killing Granny, and killing everyone is Ok for a lot of reasons. One of the reasons is, what about that collateral loss of life. And the other one is if you kill them, you can’t question them. Henry: Earnest insisted otherwise. Earnest: We’ve seen many cases around the world where U.S. drones have killed innocent civilians, despite those safeguards. So how do you have a moral authority. Earnest: What I'm saying is that is a stark difference than the tactics that are employed by our enemies who seek to use car bombs to actually target innocent civilians.
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