Congress, in their slavish insistence on giving away the keys to the store both early and often (The Patriot Act, FISA, The MCA, the sometimes slobberingly effusively embracing rubberstamped appointments of key people who helped fortify the dirty BushCO regime) helped put us where we are and those not as comprimised as others have to play their role to help turn this nightmare around. We have to demand it. They too took oaths.
"In a democracy, the wheels of justice grind on—and the president, for good reason under the rule of law, does not have the power to stop them. " (Newsweek
http://www.newsweek.com/id/194595/page/1 ) President Obama and his best people (Eric Holder, Marty Lederman & others-- and those yet to be confirmed-- ie Dawn Johnsen) know these last memos rip the last tide wall of torture secrecy apart. Unfortunately, thanks to the December manueverings of BushCo pushing these last FOIA memo deadlines back one last time, they didn't get to choose when this would happen, and I have no trouble believing they would have liked more than a matter or weeks before all of this might become unleashed, but they are the side of what is right and necessary. We got them with little redaction and they are incredibly damning. They could have semi-complied with a whole bunch more blacked out crap and bargained for yet more delays on the redactions. They didn't and that means something. Now the work of a whole country has to begin to fortify President Obama's and Eric Holder's first decisive step.
Senator Feinstein: not so transparant.
Senate Intel Committee Announces Broad Investigation of CIA InterrogationsBy Elana Schor - March 5, 2009, 4:15PM
The Intelligence panel announced today that it would conduct a year-long inquiry into the scope and performance of the CIA's interrogation program, including "whether the CIA accurately described the detention and interrogation program to other parts of the U.S. government" and "whether the CIA implemented the program in compliance with official guidance."
(...)
This investigation has the potential to unearth much more detail about the conduct of Bush's "war on terror" than we already have, but it is likely to be conducted largely in private.
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/03/senate-intel-committee-announces-broad-investigation-of-cia-interrogations.phphttp://intelligence.senate.gov/press/record.cfm?id=309152Senate Panel to Examine CIA Detainee HandlingBy Joby Warrick
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, February 27, 2009; A04
(...)
The Senate intelligence committee is planning an unprecedented review of the CIA's handling of captured terrorist suspects, drawing back the curtain for the first time on the agency's use of waterboarding and other interrogation tactics inside secret CIA prisons, congressional sources said yesterday.
The review, which could be announced as early as today, will use official testimony and hundreds of classified documents to piece together an authoritative account of one of the most clandestine -- and, to some former and current agency officials, darkest -- chapters of the Bush administration's anti-terrorism war, the officials said.
Lawmakers will try to determine not only how detainees were interrogated, but also whether the CIA's controversial methods produced useful intelligence, according to three congressional officials briefed on the plans.
Former CIA leaders have said the use of waterboarding, which simulates drowning, and other harsh measures yielded information that helped prevent a wave of terrorist attacks after Sept. 11, 2001.
The officials described the planned inquiry as a "study" and stressed that it would not yield recommendations for possible legal proceedings. It was not yet clear how much of the panel's work would be conducted in public, nor what the end product would look like, said the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing the sensitivity of the committee's internal discussions.
more:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/26/AR2009022603282_pf.html We don't have a year for her to drag this out. This appears to be carefully designed gatekeeping, a "study" that in time may or may not even be declassified and made public.
I hope you will write to her and tell her what you think. ( I did.)