Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI)
94 Articles

Charlie Hebdo, The Interview, and Censoring Torture Photos
In France and the United States, there seems to be near-universal agreement that to self-censor because of threats of violence is unwise and cowardly. The slogan “Je Suis Charlie,”…

Not to be Forgotten: The Case of Maher Arar
In the midst of our ongoing coverage of the content of, and fall out from, the Senate Select Intelligence Committee Report, and debates about the obligation to devise some form…

Guest Post: Torture is Still on the Table
The recent Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on CIA interrogations is a parade of horribles. Detainees by the dozen arrested wrongfully and later released, including innocent…

Flashback—Ex-Bush Official, Col. Wilkerson: “I am Willing to Testify” If Dick Cheney is Prosecuted for Torture
I was reminded yesterday of an interview on Democracy Now! with Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson (ret.) in 2011, in which he was asked about Vice President Dick Cheney’s recently released…

Recap of Recent Posts at Just Security (Dec 6-12)
I. Torture A. Senate Intelligence Committee Torture Report Just Security, Senate Report on Interrogation Program – Executive Summary and Opposing Views (Tuesday, Dec. 9) Steve…

The Torture Report is Only the First Step
Ed Note. This piece also appears in Foreign Policy. Great nations admit and learn from their mistakes. The United States took a major step forward this week with the long-delayed…

Five Torturous Steps to Hell
In a short and early section of the SSCI’s redacted summary of its torture report, we can read about the step-by-step descent from humanity to inhumanity, from the 20th century…

The Torture Report and the “Glomar Fig Leaf”
The Glomar Explorer, the CIA ship after which the much-abused legal doctrine is named Buried in the SSCI’s report is an arresting passage that suggests that the CIA was quietly…

Guest Post: They Knew It Was Illegal
The Senate Intelligence Committee report released December 9 confirms many already-reported facts about the CIA torture program, including the agency’s use of brutal stress positions,…

Torture: Unreliable and Inestimably Costly
A few years ago, I served as a member of the Constitution Project’s Task Force on Detainee Treatment – an 11-member, bi-partisan group of former, high-ranking officials in…

Senate Report on Interrogation Program – Executive Summary and Opposing Views
The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence has finally released the executive summary of its report on the CIA interrogation program. The full document can be found at the bottom…

The Torture Convention & Appendix M of the Army Field Manual on Interrogations
We are on the eve of the release of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence’s report on the Central Intelligence Agency’s interrogation program. Although this report will…