{"id":4162,"date":"2010-06-10T08:35:22","date_gmt":"2010-06-10T12:35:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/?p=4162"},"modified":"2010-06-12T07:56:51","modified_gmt":"2010-06-12T11:56:51","slug":"breaking-free-for-real","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/2010\/06\/10\/breaking-free-for-real\/","title":{"rendered":"breaking free for real…"},"content":{"rendered":"
Whoops! Yesterday, while I was reading the Physicians for Human Rights<\/strong><\/a> Report and looking over the Zubaydah Articles by emptywheel<\/font><\/strong>, Jeff Kaye<\/font><\/strong>, and Jason Leopold<\/font><\/strong>, I missed Jeff’s post yesterday on FDL<\/font><\/strong> and a New York Times<\/font><\/strong> editorial that actually should have been in the punch line to my own post [breaking free…<\/a><\/strong>]… <\/div>\n
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Exclusive: Senate Intel Committee to Consider PHR Findings on Torture Experiments<\/a>
FireDogLake<\/strong>
By Jeff Kaye
June 9, 2010<\/div>\n

Senator Dianne Feinstein’s press office kindly returned my phone query the other day about her response to the revelations in the new Physicians for Human Rights [PHR] report, “Experiments in Torture: Evidence of Human Subject Research and Experimentation in the ‘Enhanced’ Interrogation Program<\/strong>” [PDF<\/a><\/strong>]. Sen. Feinstein’s response indicated that the Senate Intelligence Committee would examine PHR’s findings.<\/p>\n

PHR’s investigation showed that doctors and psychologists involved in the Bush Administration’s CIA “enhanced interrogation” torture program apparently used high-value detainees as guinea pigs in experiments to determine how they could refine the torture techniques to get by the law. Of course, they were assisted in this by the lawyers of the Office of Legal Counsel, John Yoo and Jay Bybee, and later Steven Bradbury. Then, in 2006, the Bush Administration had Congress rewrite the War Crimes Act to soften the restrictions against “biological experimentation.” I’ve been following this story actively [see <\/strong>here<\/strong><\/a> and here]<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

I was especially curious to see what, if anything, Sen. Feinstein had to say, because she is the chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence<\/strong>. As Jason Leopold reported<\/a><\/strong> in April, the Committee has begun an investigation into the torture and detention policies surrounding the high-value detainees, particularly the treatment of Abu Zubaydah, who “the Bush administration wrongly claimed was one of the planners of 9\/11 and a top al-Qaeda operative.” Zubaydah was famously the subject of the second August 2002 OLC Bybee memo approving the use of torture techniques like waterboarding, sleep deprivation, putting insects in a confinement box, stress positions and other techniques meant to break down the mind and body of prisoners.<\/p>\n

This was the e-mail response from Sen. Feinstein’s office (emphasis added): …<\/div>\n