Documents Detail Conditions Found at Secret C.I.A. Jails
New York Times
By SCOTT SHANE and CHARLIE SAVAGE
October 31, 2009F.B.I. agents who arrived at a secret C.I.A. jail overseas in September 2002 found prisoners “manacled to the ceiling and subjected to blaring music around the clock,” and a C.I.A. official wrote a list of questions for interrogators including “How close is each technique to the ‘rack and screw,’ ” according to hundreds of pages of partly declassified documents released Friday by the Justice Department.
The documents include handwritten notes, apparently prepared by Justice Department officials, discussing the possibility of prosecuting some employees of the Central Intelligence Agency. The notes reveal that the Justice Department considered prosecuting a C.I.A. interrogator for a previously reported incident in which a detainee was threatened with a gun and a power drill, but it says department officials declined to prosecute the case.
The documents were released in the latest response to several Freedom of Information Act lawsuits filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and Judicial Watch, a Washington advocacy group. Some are new versions of documents previously released. Newly disclosed passages from a 2008 report by the Justice Department inspector general describe what agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation saw at the C.I.A. jail where Ramzi bin al-Shibh, one of the plotters of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, was being questioned.
The F.B.I. agents helped C.I.A. officers prepare questions for Mr. Binalshibh but “were denied direct access to him for four or five days,” the report said. Then an F.B.I. agent, identified as “Thomas,” was allowed to see him and found him “naked and chained to the floor.” The agent told the inspector general that “he obtained valuable actionable intelligence in a short time but that the C.I.A. quickly shut down the interview,” the report said…
Documents Released by the Justice Department
Since the night that Director of the FBI Mueller rushed with the acting head of the Attorney General to the hospital to prevent Bush 2’s chief of staff Andy Card and Alberto Gonzales from having a critically ill AG Ashcroft sign off on documents, I’ve had a lot of respect for Mueller. I’m glad that President Obama feels confident in Director Mueller too because he is still Director of the FBI and in the presidents cabinet. I apologize for writing this out of context. What you have to say is very important
I don’t know what happened but without my clicking the mouse it sent the above comment. I just finished the book “In The Presidents’s Secret Service” by Ronald Kessler and in the book he points out a lot of costcutting of the secret service going on right now. His last paragraph “Without those changes, an assassination of Barack Obama or a future president is likely. If that happens, a new Warren Commission will be appointed to study the tragedy. It will find that the Secret Service was shockingly derelict in it’s duty to the American people and to its own elite corps of brave and dedicated agents.” The author says that the FBI in rec ents years has become a much better agency (especially regaring the torture stuff). Trotta head of the Office of Protective Operations “the Secret Service management is obvlious to how its own failings undermine that mission.” It’s a scary book when it was announced on the news that since Obama is president the threats to him are up 400% over the last president. Again I’m sorry for not commenting about the important topic you wrote today but I know that a lot of us that read your blog and Ralph’s blog worry abou the safety of our president.
The Obama Administration is not responsible for the costcutting because this has been an on going problem. It is more a mindset of directors and supervisors the last couple of years or so. I hope the issues noted in this new book about the Secret Service will start the process to correct the problems necessary to help our democratically elected president and vice president for the good of our country. I’m sorry for taking so much space Mickey on your blog.