* won't reveal location of secret prisons

[babylonsister]

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/04/17/578/

Bush Allies in Congress Block Bill That Would Require Intelligence Disclosures
by Mark Mazzetti

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration’s allies in Congress on Monday blocked a bill that would require the White House to disclose the locations of secret prisons run by the Central Intelligence Agency and to reveal the amount spent annually by American intelligence agencies.

The vote on the intelligence bill was a blow to Senate Democrats, newly in control of Congress, who had hoped that they would be able to extract more details from the White House about some of the most widely debated intelligence programs begun after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Opponents of the legislation, led by Senator Jim DeMint, a South Carolina Republican, won enough support on Monday to prevent the bill from going to the Senate floor for a final vote. But Congressional officials said that negotiations over the measure would continue Tuesday, and Democrats said they were still hopeful the bill could eventually pass.

Money for the 2007 intelligence budget was already appropriated last year through the defense spending bill, so defeat of the bill would not hold up money for the 16 agencies that make up the American intelligence network. The White House last week threatened to veto the intelligence bill because it contained several provisions it deemed objectionable, including a requirement that the Bush administration give Congress a detailed report about C.I.A. prison locations and interrogation methods used on high-level terrorism suspects.

Since 2002, the C.I.A. has detained and interrogated several top operatives of Al Qaeda, including Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, suspected of being the mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks. Last year, President Bush announced that all C.I.A prisoners had been transferred to Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and put in military custody, but that the C.I.A. prisons would remain in operation.

The White House has since declined to say whether the C.I.A. currently has any prisoners in custody.

The Senate bill also requires the White House to make public the annual budget of the American intelligence agencies. The intelligence budget, which has long been classified, is widely believed to be approximately $44 billion.

more...

[tularetom]

1. Hope they don't have torture him to get him to tell eom

[no_hypocrisy]

2. If he told, then it wouldn't be a secret . . . .

[gratuitous]

3. Golly, no up-or-down vote?

Color me shocked that the Republicans wouldn't want to get it on record where everybody stands in regards to the American gulags. Doesn't Sen. DeMint trust the will of the people? Or is that only to be respected when it runs parallel to what DeMint wants?

[Az_lefty]

4. I still can't believe we're operating secret prisons...

and the public isn't outraged? This sounds a lot like the old Soviet Union that the RW loved to refer to as the "Evil Empire".

[New Era]

9. My thoughts exactly

:argh:

[Solly Mack]

5. .....

Harsh C.I.A. Methods Cited in Top Qaeda Interrogations

In the case of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, a high-level detainee who is believed to have helped plan the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, C.I.A. interrogators used graduated levels of force, including a technique known as "water boarding," in which a prisoner is strapped down, forcibly pushed under water and made to believe he might drown.

Secret prisons

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1237589,00.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/01/AR2005110101644.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/5321606.stm

[Horse with no Name]

6. How in the world can the MINORITY suppress a vote?

Thangs that make you go :scared:

[youngdem]

7. This makes me suspect Cheney won't tell HIM where they are

That, or he can't pronounce them.

[Faux pas]

8. WTF? I thought we had 'the power' now.....

Just kidding, I know we have no power. It's all illusion.

America's concentration camps:

http://www.apfn.org/apfn/camps.htm